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PHILIP AND ALEXANDER 
OF MACEDON 

TWO ESSAYS IN BIOGRAPHY 

BT 

DAVID G. HOGARTH 

M.A., FELLOW OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD, F.S.A., F.R.G.S. 



WITH MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS 



NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1897 



HISTORY I 



Copyright, 1897 
By Charles Sceibnek's Sons 



©rttbersttg $rrss 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 



Clartsstma et (JTarisstmo 

Collegia 

Beatae fflariae fHagtjalcnae 

&puto ©xcmtenses 



221989 



PREFACE. 



The heroes of these essays need no introduction, and 
I have no excuse for making them my theme if 
this book supplies none. I treat the two Makers of 
Macedon, not in proportion to their respective bulk 
in history, but to the number of books written 
already about them. Philip, so far as I know, sup- 
plies the central figure to no extant biography ; 
Alexander has inspired a whole literature. 

My debts to previous students are obvious enough, 
even when not indicated in footnotes. I believe 
I have left very few works bearing on the subject 
unread, and my unconscious obligations must be 
many. I thank the authorities of the Departments 
of Coins and Medals and of Classical Antiquities at 
the British Museum, and also of the Cabinet des 
Medaillcs at Paris, for material supplied for my 
illustrations. To those who have criticised my book 
while in the press — Mr. R. W. Macan, Reader in 
Ancient History in the University of Oxford, and 



Vlll PREFACE. 

Mr. C. H. Turner, Fellow of Magdalen — I can offer, 
by a mere expression of thanks in a Preface, no 
return in the least commensurate with the acute 
and learned labour which they have bestowed. 
They have emended many things ; and if still many 
shortcomings remain, I can plead only the inter- 
ruptions which are inseparable from the life of an 
exploring scholar. 

D. G. H. 

London, 
December 14, 1896. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



I. Philip. page 

Prologue. The Man of the Age 1 

Introductory. Macedonians and feudatories 4 

Early kings 10 

The Macedonian land 13 

Macedonian king and vassals .... 15 

Early years of Philip 22 

Thebes and Thebans 28 

Accession of Philip 43 

First campaign 46 

Army-making 49 

New military ideas 60 

Getting ready for action 64 

Open war with Athens 67 

War in Thessaly 70 

War on the north and east 73 

Olynthus and her confederacy 74 

Athens and her statesmen 79 

Peace between Athens and Philip 86 

Philip marches south 92 

Macedonian supremacy 97 

Troubles with Athens 99 

Philip marches to the Danube 106 

Rupture with Athens 110 

Sieges of Perinthus and Byzantium Ill 

The young Alexander 116 



X CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Philip marches south again .........119 

Chaeronea and its consequents 127 

The Panhellenic League 134 

Philip and his household 136 

Murder of Philip 142 

Epilogue. Limitations of Philip 143 

Philip and Athens 145 

The expansion of Hellas 155 

II. Alexander. 

Prologue. Alexander and his inheritance 159 

First campaigns in Europe 168 

Alexander and Panhellenism 171 

The vengeance of Hellas 17_3_ 

Alexander starts for Asia 177 

The coast campaigns 181 

Issus and its consequents 183 

Alexander the Founder 187 

Amnion and his Son 193 

The advance resumed 200 

Arbela 202 

""Development of Alexander's ideal 206 

■^ Reorganization of the expeditionary force . . . . . 212 

Last pursuit of Darius ...213 

The Army of the East 217 

Colonization of the East 225 

Afghanistan and Turkestan 228 

Alexander Emperor 234 

The march into India 236 

Mutiny and retreat 241 

The spirit of India and Alexander 242 

Exploration of Ocean 249 

Oecumenic Scheme 259 

Alexander and Rome compared 263 

Alexander goes north 266 

Arrival at Babylon 269 



CONTENTS. xi 

PAGE 

The Army of the West .... 271 

The last days 273 

Epilogue. Alexander's permanent work 276 

His personal immortality 278 

Appendix. 

The cardinal dates of Alexander's life 284 

Intermediate events 288 

The latter half of Alexander's reign 291 

Three doubtful years 295 

Table of results 304 

Index 307 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



TO FACE PAGE 

Alexander in Battle (from the Sarcophagus of the 
Satraps, Constantinople) ..... Frontispiece 

Philip (Tarsus Medallion, Cabinet de France) ... 1 

Copy of a Portrait Bust of Alexander Tivoli Herm 

in the Louvre 159 

Copy of a Portrait Bust of Alexander in the British 

Museum 161 

Alexander deified as Ammon — Coins of Lysimactius 

(British Museum) 278 

Alexander deified as Heracles in Roman Times — 

Tarsus Medallion (Cabinet de France) .... 280 

Alexander Immortal (Tarsus Medallion, Cabinet de 

France) 282 

Map of the Area of Alexander's Asiatic Conquest At the end. 




PHILIP 
Tarsus Medallion — Cabinet de France 



PHILIP 



The Man of an Age is judged least justly by 
those who have lived in the Age ; for historical 
vision can adjust its focus to the nearest objects no 
better than the natural eye. Posterity, therefore, 
while taking contemporary evidence for fact, must 
reserve the verdict to itself, and most jealously in 
an epoch of great change. While an old order is 
passing into a new, the destruction of the one 
obscures the construction of the other ; and those 
who watch the great man to his grave seldom attain 
to more than a dim suspicion that he has been 
neither wholly dreamer nor wholly devil. Thus, 
although Theopompus condemned Philip of Mace- 
don with utter condemnation, none the less his 
chronicle of the king's deeds, so far as preserved, 
makes it clear that, had we it all, we should say of 
the hostile historian, as has been said even of Demos- 
thenes, " personne mieux n'a fait ressortir les grandes 
qualites du fonclateur de la puissance Macedonienne." a 

1 Weil: introduction to his Plaidoyers de Demosthene, p. 18. 

1 



£, '; \/] \'.]:':".': PHILIP 

Every cloud that can gather about a great man has 
darkened the fame of Philip. No work of a contem- 
porary historian has come down to us except in frag- 
ments ; and until some Egyptian grave gives up 
the Philippica of Theopompus, or the Macedonica of 
Anaximenes, we must be content to glean the facts 
of Philip's life from late epitomes of late historians, 
from scanty narratives of universal chroniclers, and 
from gossips and retailers of anecdote ; while for 
first-hand evidence we have only the partial utter- 
ances of the Athenian orators, his enemies or his 
hirelings. The eyes of posterity, both in ancient 
and modern times, have been dazzled by Alexander, 
and hardly have remarked the great figure which 
stands behind him ; and enthusiasm for Hellas in 
a cultivated modern age has begotten bitter hatred 
for the name which is associated with the fall of 
Greek autonomy. Grote, for example, insensible to 
the fact that he himself has described with masterly 
skill the process of inevitable decay, at the end, not 
the beginning, of which stands Macedonian supremacy, 
seconds the champions of a shadow of liberty as though 
they were fighting still for a Periclean Athens. 
♦Even Thirlwall, most judicious historian of the last 
age of free Greece, feels constrained to deny personal 
merit to Philip, " great, not for what he was, but 
for what it was given him to do ! " What is this 
distinction between a man and his acts ? Philip is 
the great individual, who stands in the gap between 
two stages of human progress and is himself the link. 
He recognized entirely neither what was passing away 



THE MAN OF THE AGE 3 

nor what was coming to pass, but he was not therefore 
more a blind tool of Heaven than all human agents of 
destruction and construction have been and must be. 
Few men have seen so surely as he the faults of a 
dying order, and set themselves so consciously to 
create a new. The defects of the city-state, its 
W premature senility, resultant on too intense political 
life^ its incapacity for growth and combination, and 
its^Veakness in the face of wider unions — these 
things Philip discerned, and history warrants us in 
crediting him with a reasoned conviction that the 
city was to pass away before the nation ; that division 
of labour and mutual assistance must take the place of 
the direct fulfilment of all functions by all ; and that 
spasmodic individual effort would be superseded by 
permanent organization. Reading the lesson of his 
times, and marking the proved inferiority of citizen 
militia to standing forces, and of the capricious rule 
of the many to an imperial system under a single 

Ihead, he evolved the first European Power in the 
modern sense of the word — an armed nation with a 
common national ideal. This, his own conception, 
he understood clearly and pursued consistently 
through twenty-three years. Surely such a man 
may be called great for what he was. 



PHILIP 



Philip was born in the year 382 before our era. 
The baby's prospect in life was not brilliant. He was 
third son of Amyntas of Macedonia, a petty king 
of no account in the world as it was then, who had 
been chased once to the last hold in his kingdom 
and compelled to see a rival sit on his throne ; 
who had been restored by foreign swords, and was 
still in direst danger from barbarians on the north 
and Greeks on the south, but most of all from his 
own subjects. To understand both the position of 
this man's son, and his conduct when, twenty-three 
years later, he succeeded to a throne whose occupants 
hardly ever had died in their beds, it is necessary 
that we examine briefly the conditions under which 
Macedonian monarchy existed. 

The origin of the peoples who in the dawn of 
history inhabited the part of south-eastern Europe 
since called Macedonia, 1 is a question singularly 
obscure and perhaps insoluble. Fortunately the 
point really important for later history is neither 
insoluble nor obscure, namely, the belief held and 

1 I use the name in its ordinary, not its Eoman, sense, to 
include only the country between the mouth of the Nestus, 
Olympus, the Cambunian range, and the vague northern frontier 
of Paeonia. 



THE MACEDONIAN PEOPLE 5 

acted upon in ancient times. Tradition asserted 
that the population of " Macedonia " had neither one 
source nor one history ; for one element in it was (as 
Hellenes said) " barbarian." another Hellene. The first 
element it pleased antiquarians to call " Pelasgic," 1 
but that name, meaning, in the first instance, probably 
no more than "the old folk," had come to be used of 
any early people of doubtful origin who had lived 
where in later times Hellenes were found. It is 
certain now that the element in question was largely 
composed of that race, to which the Bryges and many 
other European tribes pertained, together with their 
myths 2 of Gordius and Midas, whose final home is 
Phrygia. Its progress across Europe and its overflow 
into Asia have been traced by ethnologists, and the 
wanderings of its groups at various epochs account 
perhaps for those traces of M Thracian " and " Carian " 
occupation in Hellas and the isles which have puzzled 
antiquarians in all ages. 3 This race was Aryan, but 
in the eyes of the Hellenes "barbarian." 

Tradition held the other element to be Hellenic, 
and no one in the fourth century seriously questioned 
its belief. 4 We meet with it in legends of the 

1 Vide e. g. Justin, vii. 1. 

2 We have the early authority of Herodotus for these myths 
(viii. 13S) ; cf. Justin, vii. 1, etc. 

3 Strabo (p. 445) quotes Aristotle for " Thracians " in Euboea 
and Phoeis. The " Carian question" is well known. The best 
views on the whole matter are Professor W. M. Ramsay's, in 
" A Study of Phrygian Art " (Journ. Hell. Studies, vols. ix. and x.). 

4 The taunts of a hostile orator levelled against Philip are no 
evidence at all of popular incredulity on the point (Demosth., 
Phil. i. 10; Ohjnth. iii. 24; F. L. 327, etc.). The fact that Philip 



6 PHILIP 

migrations of " Macedonian " peoples out of Hellas, 
such as Bottiaeans from Crete, 1 or Athens, and 
Dorians from Histiaeotis of Thessaly, 2 or Argos. The 
evidence that the latter city was believed to be the 
earliest home of the Macedonian kings and their 
immediate followers (for kings do not establish them- 
selves on thrones without strong battalions behind 
them) is overwhelming; 3 on the strength of that 
belief the Macedonian kings obtained admission to 
the common festivals of Hellas, and consistently acted 
in the government of their realm. 

To the second element it was believed that the 
dominant race, the Macedonians properly so-called, 
belonged. They were (in Greek opinion) an immi- 
grant people from the south, whose leader " conquered 
land for his subjects and became king; " 4 they settled 
in the fertile plains about the mouths and lower 

ruled over many barbarians would give those taunts quite point 
enough for the occasion. Herodotus ( v. 22) tells us that Alex- 
ander I. was called fidpfiapos when he tried to enter the stadium 
at Olympia early in the fifth century, but triumphantly refuted the 
libel. 

1 A view strongly supported by place-names like Gortynia, 
Idomenaea, etc., found in historical times in the Vardar valley. 
See Strabo, pp. 330, 279, 282; Plut., Thes. 16 (quoting Aristotle), 
and Qu. Gr. 35, etc. 

2 Hdt. (i. 56) calls this race Ma/ceSvov. Abel thinks that the 
root Ma* is also that of May-i^Tcs. 

3 See, e. g., Hdt., v. 22 ; viii. 137 ; Time, ii. 99 ; Tsocr., Phil. 32 ; 
Theopomp. fr. 30 ; Justin, vii. 1 ; Strabo, p. 329 ; Paus., vii. 8, 9 ; 
Appian, Syr. 63; Diod., xvii. 1; Plut., Alex. 2, etc. Abel's 
ingenious theory that another Argos in Lyncestis was the real 
source, even if proved, makes no difference to Greek belief, which 
unquestionably looked to the Peloponnesian city. 

4 Cf. Thuc, ii. 99. 



HELLENIC AND BARBARIAN ELEMENTS 7 

courses of the Kara Su and the Vardar, which were 
called in ancient times Pieria and Emathia (or earlier 
Bottiaea), 1 and they pushed the older peoples into the 
western and northern highlands, where they continued 
to subsist under many titles — Orestians, Lyncestians, 
Elimiotes, Paeonians, and so forth. So far as we 
can tell, the belief that the " Macedonians " of the 
coast-plains and the men of the hills were distinct 
peoples with distinct traditions and claims was held 
not only in Greece but in Macedonia as well. The 
clearest distinction is always drawn between " Mace- 
donians " and all other components of the national 
phalanx in the Asiatic army of Alexander. 2 

I have said already that we are not concerned with 
the truth or falsehood of these opinions. In this 
matter, as so often in history, it imports infinitely less 
that an event did not happen than that it was believed 
to have happened. We even need not have definite 
views as to the exclusively Hellenic character of one 
element, 3 or the exclusively barbarian character of 
the other ; probably much intermixture took place. 4 

1 Strabo, p. 330 ; cf. also Justin, vii. 1. 

2 Cf., e.g., Am, iii. 18, 20, 23, with vii. 4; and Plut., Hum. 4. 

3 It is beyond the scope of this essay to attempt any inquiry into 
the real ethnic affinities of the Macedonian people, based on 
philological or archaeological evidence. In point of fact, there is 
not nearly enough evidence available to lead to any useful result ; 
in proof of which I will only refer the curious to such inquiries 
as that in Parts I., II., of Abel's Makedonien vor Konig Philip, 
and Pick, in Kuhn's Zeitschrift, xxiii. p. 193. 

4 Thucydides, indeed, includes the Lyncestians and Elimiotes 
among " Macedonians," at the same time insisting on their separate 
political status (ii. 99) ; and we know the Lyncestian princely 



8 PHILIP 

Our cardinal point is this — that between the 
" Macedonians " of the coast-plain and the free men 
of the hills before the time of Philip the Second 
there was not that community of tradition and hope, 
which alone consummates the identity of a nation. 
There were hostile elements in the political whole, 
one element having been conquered by another but 
not completely enough to lose its independent con- 
stitution and to become absorbed or enslaved, as 
was the case in Laconia, the second of the three 
monarchical realms surviving in Greece in the time 
of Aristotle. 1 

The key to the history of Macedonia lies in this 
disunion of tradition. The king was chief in the first 
instance of a race of plain-dwellers, who held them- 
selves to be, like him, of Hellenic stock, and were 
his faithful Companions (eratpot), retained by ties of 
common interest and common danger. In the second 
place he was over-lord of a more numerous but less 
united body of hill-tribes, whom he had forced to 
acknowledge his power, but not to give up their 
princes. 2 There had been some kind of compromise 
between two not very unequal forces, with a result 
so near equilibrium that a little weight thrown into 
one scale or the other made always peace or war. 
The khig ever and anon is struggling with hostile 

house to have been Bacchiad, and to have home Greek names like 
Alexander and Eurydice. Eordaea, Thucydides says, was com- 
pletely conquered, like Bottiaea. Cf. Strabo, p. 326. 

i Pol. v. 8. 5. 

2 There were still semi-independent kinglets in the extreme west 
after Philip's death. Arr., i. 5. 



THE FEUDATORIES 9 

feudatories, who try to regain their lost autonomy or 
even to establish a supremacy in place of his. All 
we know of the earliest reigns is the fact of recur- 
ring wars with " Illyrians." x Now, that nationality, 
as Abel 2 has observed, to reach Emathia must pass 
through the lands of the feudatory hill-tribes, with 
whom we find it often allied during the fourth century. 
Indeed, there is some evidence 3 to show that Greek 
historians did not clearly distinguish between the 
allies, and a probability that in nine out of ten cases, 
when Macedonian kings went out to battle with 
" Illyrians," they were at war first and foremost with 
their own great feudatories of Lyncestis, Orestis, 
Elimiotis, or Paeonia. Furthermore, when the suc- 
cession to the Macedonian throne was interrupted — 
as, for example, after the death of Archelaus — or 
when " pretenders " arose, as in the reign of Amyntas 
or the first year of Philip himself, then a subject 
hill-people or a group of tribes was asserting itself 
successfully against the hereditary foe. 

The Macedonian therefore came to learn that he 
must cultivate the Hellene, and identify himself and 
his interest with the south. From Alexander L, who 
rode to the Athenian pickets the night before Plataea 
and proclaimed himself to the generals their friend 
and a Greek, down to Amyntas, father of Philip, who 
joined forces with Lacedaemon in 382, the kings 
of Macedon bid for Greek support by being more 

1 Justin, vii. 2. 2 Page 206. 

3 E.g. Eurydice, Philip's mother, a Lyncestian princess, is called 
an Illvrian. 



10 PHILIP 

Hellenic than the Hellenes. Alexander I. contended 
in the stadium at Olympia, and earned, like Amasis 
of Egypt, the epithet " Philhellene." Archelaus 
patronized Athenian poets and Athenian drama, 1 and 
commissioned Euripides to dramatize the deeds of his 
Argive ancestor. 2 Even those kings who, like Perdiccas 
and Amyntas, were prevented by internal difficulties 
from cultivating the peaceful arts of Hellenism, 3 
maintained alliances and friendship as consistently 
as their necessities or their interest would allow. 

" Macedonia," therefore, throughout historical times 
until the accession of Philip the Second, presents 
the spectacle of a nation that was no nation but 
a group of discordant units, without community of 
race, religion, speech, or sentiment, resultant from 
half-accomplished conquest, and weak as the several 
sticks of the faggot in the fable. The history of 
its stronger kings is a history of attempts to complete 
the original conquest, and with Greek help to bind 
the faggot together ; the history of its weaker kings 
is a history of a series of successful reactions by the 
hill-men, aided by Illyrians or Thracians from beyond 
the border. The work done by that Aeropus, who 
as a child was placed in a cradle behind his army, 
to force it to face the " Illyrians," 4 and as a man 
broke the " Illyrian " power, was continued by his 
successors, Amyntas and Alexanc|^fc with the aid 

1 Agatharch. ap. Phot., s. v. 'Ap^eAaos. 

2 Archelaus also instituted a Macedonian festival of Zeus 
Olympius. Arr., i. 11. See Holm, Gr. Gesch. iii. 14, p. 230. 

8 See Isocr., Phil. 107. 
4 Justin, vii. 1. 



EARLY KINGS 11 

of Persia, whose satraps they consented for the time 
to be. When the Persian was gone, Alexander allied 
himself openly to the Greek, and his son, Perdiccas, 
a diplomat of the first force, played with masterly 
skill a double game to gain Greek support without 
risking Greek encroachment. For nearly a hundred 
years the great feudatories were coerced ever more 
and more boldly until Archelaus, succeeding in 413 
B. c, hoped to complete the process and indissolubly 
to bind the faggot together. He seems to have been 
an enlightened strategist, for he instituted great works 
of communication and centralization, cut direct roads 
through the mountain passes to tie the tribes together 
and to promote trade, laid out chains of forts, and 
perhaps began to form a national army, 1 the best 
unifier of all, as a greater king was to find half a cen- 
tury later. But, overstrung, the bow snapped ; and 
Archelaus' murder 2 in 399 was the beginning of forty 
years of turmoil and trouble. The feudatories warred 
against their Macedonian over-lord, and either openly 
seized his throne, as Argaeus did that of Amyntas 
II., or forced their " guardianship " on a young king, 
as Ptolemy Alorites, after murdering Amyntas' eldest 
son, intruded with the queen-mother's connivance on 
the independence of the second brother. The relation 
of the "Steward" Aeropus in 399 to Archelaus' 
son, Orestes, whom he afterwards murdered and 



1 See a remarkable passage of Thucydides (ii. 100). 

2 The result of conspiracy, according to the contemporary Plato 
(Alcib. p. 141 d.), and Aristotle {Pol. v. 8. 11-13) : the 7ratStKa 
who effected it was probably no more than the agent of others. 



12 PHILIP 

succeeded, was doubtless of the same equivocal 
character. 

Thus Macedonia, when Philip was born, had sprung 
back with a rebound to the internal discord and 
external weakness of a century before. The " pre- 
tender " Argaeus had vanished from the throne, but 
Amyntas held his own merely by sufferance of 
Thessalians and Spartans. An Acanthian envoy at 
Sparta in 383 describes the Macedonian king as 
forced to retire from his cities and " all but fallen 
out of his kingdom." * He retained it, indeed, up to 
his death twelve years later, but in what jeopardy we 
may judge from events immediately consequent — 
from the conspiracy of his wife against his person, 
the tragic end of his eldest son and successor, the 
usurpation and murder of Ptolemy Alorites, the 
battles of the second son with the " Illyrians," and 
the crop of " pretenders " who greeted the accession 
of Philip — these the events of just ten years ! A 
Macedonian prince in the early part of the fourth 
century could hope to succeed to little more than 
the chieftainship of a clan, imperilled by a neces- 
sity for asserting over hostile aliens an hereditary 
suzerainty, which, like the wolf's ears in the Greek 
proverb, it was equally dangerous to hold or to 
leave. 

He was king, however, absolute as in heroic times 

among his peculiar people, that small dominant clan 

of Macedonian settlers who held themselves to be of 

like origin with him. Thucydides, 2 a contemporary 

1 Xen., Hell. v. 2, 13. 2 ii. 99. 



THE MACEDONIAN LAND 13 

of Archelaus and Perdiccas, and personally acquainted 
to some extent with the Macedonian land, makes it 
clear that the original holding of the Macedonians 
was just that semi-circular expanse of low land which 
lies west and north of the Gulf of Salonica. Whoever 
has sailed up that sea and ridden three days north to 
Voclhena, and three days east to Cavalla, has seen 
the whole cradle of Macedonian power. The three- 
pronged peninsula of Chalcidice was not included, 
for it was in Greek hands ; nor were the high valleys, 
lying between the first conspicuous western range and 
the loftier mountain chain behind, which now divides 
Macedonia from Albania, since those were the hold- 
ings of the Elimiote, Orestian, Lyncestian, and Pela- 
gonian feudatories ; nor, again, was the plain of 
Monastir on the north between Mount Scardus and the 
hills which close upon the Vardar at Demir Kapou 
included, for this was Paeonian territory. All these 
lands, indeed, except Chalcidice, as Thucydides bears 
witness, were to be called later by the common name 
Macedonia, and Lyncestians and Elimiotes and other 
upland peoples were included eventually among 
Macedonians, but as a result of conquest ; the 
Athenian historian is clear that the early Temenid 
kings ruled, in the first instance, only over the 
" lower " or " maritime " Macedonia, from which 
they had thrust the Pierians, Eordaeans, Bottiaeans, 
and Edonian Thracians. 

We know very little about the condition of tins 
low tract in early clays. The words put by Arrian 
into the mouth of Alexander, taunting his mutinous 



14 PHILIP 

army at Opis with base ingratitude to the son 
of the man who had given them cloaks in place of 
coverings of skins, brought them down from the hills 
to inhabit cities in the plains, and be men of wealth 
and ease instead of savages 1 — those often-quoted 
sentences, if based on Ptolemy's or Aristobulus' 
recollection of the conqueror's own words, were 
spoken, be it remembered, not to the little Clan 
of pre-Philippian days, but to the new military 
Nation of Philip's making, in which Lyncestians, 
Orestians and the like were one with the dwellers 
in the Emathian and Pierian plains. These last 
were inhabitants of rich, low-lying levels, fat corn- 
land and deep grass at the present day, close to 
centres of Greek civilization. To suppose that the 
farmers themselves were civilized up to a Greek 
standard, because Archelaus and other kings were 
<f)L\6jAov(roL, is probably as absurd as to assume 
that the Scottish Highlands were civilized in the 
seventeenth century because certain chieftains " had 
the English" and had been in London; but we 
have the evidence of an extensive coinage issued 
from Pella, 2 and ranging over a long period, to 
prove that the early Macedonians carried on much 
trade with Greeks. They were a feudal race of 
sturdy farmers, 3 not unlike the Boeotians, well-to-do 
in peace, and affording admirable material for heavy 

1 vii. 9. 

2 The ancient xPVI xaTia " r VP i0V °f Macedonia (Strabo, p. 330), 
even when Aegae was still the capital. 

8 "Ein kraftiges Bauernvolk, eifrige Krieger und Jager." 
Holm, Gr. Gesch. iii. p. 232. 



MACEDONIAN KINGSHIP 15 

cavalry or infantry in war. If ever the Tombs of 
the Kings be found at Vodhena (Aegae or Edessa), 
we may learn something of this primitive Macedonian 
life. At present so little has the land been explored, 
that we know far less of its civilization than of that 
of far remoter parts of the classic east : no remains 
of early native art, either decorative or industrial, 
have been found ; there is not an early tomb 
nor an archaic inscription to teach us anything 
at all. 

Surrounding perils apart, the valleys of Haliacmon 
and Axius were goodly heritage enough for a king as 
absolute as the Macedonian. A "constitution" the 
Macedonians had no more than Highland clansmen. 
Their land seems to have been all property of the 
king, 1 to be granted by him in fief ; Alexander dis- 
tributed estates broadcast before he crossed the 
Hellespont, 2 and remitted by a word all imposts on 
the land as well as all obligations of personal service 
to himself 3 in favour of the families of those he 
delighted to honour. The kins; levies whom he will 
for military service, 4 and can depute to another in his 
absence functions as absolute as his own. 5 Regents 

1 See an inscription of Potidaea cited in the French edition of 
Droysen, Hellenismus, i. p. 76. 

2 Pint., Alex. 15. 

3 An*., i. 16 ; vii. 10 : ot Kara rot? KT^creis ctcr<£opai', and ai 
XuTovpyiai tw crw/xart. The families of the kraipoi who fell at 
Granicus were so honoured. 

4 Arr., i. 24; vii. 12. 

5 So Antipater, authorized by Alexander's seal, collects fleets, 
(Arr., ii. 2), makes war, and holds a royal court (Arr., vii. 12), 
supreme even over the queen-mother. 



16 PHILIP 

and governors he appoints and removes at will. 1 He 
can do no wrong ; 2 he marries and puts away wives, 
apparently as it pleases him, 3 and is the sole fountain 
of honour. 4 Seldom can the principle of absolute 
submission to a monarch have been implanted deeper 
than in the Macedonians. When Eumenes, the only 
Greek of pure blood among Alexander's Successors, 
wished to exalt his authority over that of the Regent 
and the Generals, he erected an empty tent, placed 
within it the emblems of Macedonian royalty, and 
commanded unquestioned obedience, as the repre- 
sentative of the presence within. 5 In the words of 
Demosthenes, comparing the centralized and silent 
rule of Philip with the diffused and loquacious 
sovereignty of Demos, the Macedonian king was, " in 
his single person, lord of all things, both open and 
secret, at once General and Lord Absolute and 
Treasurer." 6 

He was, in short, a clan-chieftain. The greatest of 
his subjects had no rights against him, but only privi- 
leges, 7 as children may have by favour of a father. 
They were proverbially free of speech 8 in his pre- 
sence, and the absence of servility, which emboldened 

1 See esp. Arr., vi. 27 and vii. 11. 

2 Arr., iv. 9. 7. 3 Pint,, Alex. 9. 

4 Compare the institution of the Pages, Arr., iv. 13 ; Ael. V. H. 
xiv. 49. 

5 Plut., Eum. 13. So Eumenes also distributed royal gifts (c. 8). 

6 Be Cor. 235. 

7 Polybius' statement (v. 27. 6.) that the Macedonian king ruled 
^SacrtXtKws oi TvpawiKw<;, implies no more than this. 

8 Polyb., v. 27. 6. 



THE VASSALS 17 

them to refuse his gifts 1 or give advice unasked, 
earned for them in antiquity the repute of iXevOepot 
dVSpeg. But it was no more than a " shadow of 
liberty ; " 2 they must follow whenever and wherever 
the king might lead, and leave farm or market to 
fight his battles. 3 One constitutional right, and one 
only, can we trace in Macedonian history. If we are 
to believe that Curtius uses good authorities, the 
Macedonians, strictly so called, were summoned by 
the king to general assembly if a charge were in ques- 
tion involving the life of one of their number : " De 
capitallbus rebus vetusto Macedonian modo inquirebat 
exercitus — in pace erat vulgi — et nihil potestas regum 
valebat, nisi priiis vcduisset auctoritas." 4 This state- 
ment is confirmed in the main by Arrian, who 
narrates that Alexander accused Philotas " before the 
Macedonians," while another suspect of conspiracy, 
Amyntas, made his defence iv rfj eKKXrjcria, and 
obtained leave from the latter body to bring his brother 
Polemon before the king to be exonerated from the 
charge. 5 If condemnation ensued on such an accusa- 
tion, the Assembly itself appears to have executed its 

1 So Pavmenio and others refused Alexander's gift of lands, 
offered before lie crossed the Hellespont. Pint., Alex. 15. 
Unasked advice is offered commonly enough by Alexander's 
marshals. 

2 Lucian, Dial. Mori. 14. 

8 Cf. Demosthenes' descriptions of Macedonia tired of, but 
helpless to protest against, Philip's many wars {Olynth. ii. 15 ; Ad 
Epist. Phil. 9, 10) — tirades hardly, however, to be taken au 
pied de la lettre. 

4 Curt., vi. 8. 32. 6 iii. 26. 27. 

2 



18 PHILIP 

own sentence — or rather that of the king, who was 
the actual judge — by overwhelming the culprit with 
javelins or stones. 1 These cases, however, do not 
warrant us in supposing that a Popular Assembly 
met for any but very special purposes in Mace- 
donia ; as, for instance, if one of the great Com- 
panions was accused of high treason in time of war. 
We have no warrant for supposing (and it is highly 
improbable) that in the case of meaner men such a 
cumbrous court had to be constituted, nor for a less 
crime than treason against the king's majesty. In 
ordinary cases the king was judge alone. 2 

In all monarchical states we expect gradations of 
rank, an aristocracy of birth or of honours conferred 
by the king, and a lower class which tills the land. 
In Macedonia there was no serf -population. The 
original conquest had not been complete enough to 
produce Helots or even Perioeci ; and the Emathian 
and Pierian farmers tilled their fields with the aid 
only of such slaves as they could buy or make prize 
of war. 3 

It appears that the whole body of Macedonians 
(in the restricted sense of the original settlers in 
Emathia and Pieria) distinguished themselves from 
the semi-subjugated " Macedonians " of the hills as 
the king's ircupoL, or Companions ; but that within this 



1 Arr., iii. 26. 27. ; cf. also the case of Hermolaus the Page 
(iv. 14). 

2 Plut., Alex. 42. 

8 E. g. the Greeks captured at Granicus were sent to till the 
soil in Macedonia (Arr., ii. 16). 



THE COMPANIONS 19 

large class, considering itself privileged, there were 
narrower circles of privilege, based on property — 
that is to say, in the first instance, on the favour 
of the king, who granted lands. In ancient states 
the outward and visible sign of a higher class con- 
sisted often in the providing of a war-horse, and in 
service therewith in the cavalry. So in Macedonia 
we find a smaller body of eraipoi, especially so-called, 
who are the flower of the cavalry, and a larger body 
of ne^ercupoi, 1 who are the flower of the infantry; 
and it is probable that under these two names was 
included (either on the active list or in the reserve) 
every able-bodied man among the descendants of the 
original settlers who followed the Temenid kings to 
Pieria. The superior class of horsemen in Philip's 
time was almost certainly identical with those eight 
hundred landed proprietors who, as the contemporary 
Theopompus 2 tells us, enjoyed estates as large as 
those of ten thousand Greeks ; but the same autho- 
rity and Anaximenes 3 state that their original 
numbers had been swelled somewhat before this 
period, not only by Philip's admission of foreigners 
to their ranks, 4 but by the policy of his eldest brother, 
Alexander II., who added also to the ireCJ.rcx.ipoi. 

1 I have discussed this disputed terra in an article on the 
"Army of Alexander," in Journal of Philology, vol. xvii. No. 33, 
pp. 10 ff. ; but must modify now many of my early views. See 
note infra, p. 56. 

2 Fr. 249. 

3 Fr. 7. 

4 Philip freely made such men as Callias of Chalcis (Aesch., 
Ctes. 89) Hetaeri in the later years of his life ; and probably 
Theopompus is here reviewing his whole policy. 



20 PHILIP 

The latter king, however, during a reign of hardly 
twelve months, could not have effected much change, 
and the total of Philip's earliest body of cavalry — 
six hundred 1 — is probably as near as may be to that 
of the Companions. "Within even this circle was one 
still more select, that of the court, the intimates — Com- 
panions in the strictest sense — of the king himself, in 
war-time his staff — ol dfxcf) clvtov eralpoi, as Arrian 
often calls them, — whom, to the number of something 
less than a hundred, Alexander married at Susa to the 
noblest of the Persian ladies. 2 They formed a natural 
council for the king to consult on great matters, 3 
and in order to qualify for this high honour, the 
noblest youths were glad to become Pages of the 
Body, according to Philip's institution, and perform 
menial offices about the king's person. 4 The highest 
distinction of all was still one of immediate personal 
service, the rank of Guard of the Person, only 
attained, it appears, after some signal service rendered 
directly to the king. Of eight Guards of Alexander's 
Person, two are known to have saved his life, one 
to have been his ally against his father, and one his 
second self. 5 

1 Diod. xvi. 4. 

2 Arr. vii. 4. I dare not suggest a number for the lower 
class, the 7re^€raipot. The scanty data we have apply only to 
post-Philippian days, and, as I hope to show, to a wholly changed 
national system. Herein lies the cardinal difficulty of determining 
anything whatever with regard to early Macedonia. 

3 E.g. the policy of marching to Issus (Arr. ii. 6). 

4 Arr. iv. 13 ; Curt. viii. 6. 

5 See the article quoted above (p. 19). The qualification must 
have been as stated, for the list does not include Alexander's 



THE CLAN 21 

Thus we find privilege within privilege, ascending 
to the fountain of all honour, the king. The lowest 
Macedonian felt himself exalted above the highest 
Orestian, as a king's Companion : the highest in 
rank was the nearest to the king's person. If such 
a system tended to breed insolence towards the un- 
privileged, 1 it implied also an inherent unity which 
in master-hands was capable of much. The clan 
spirit makes for strength almost as much as the 
political self-subordination of the Greek city-state, 
but is not, like the latter, incapable of expansion. 
For the present, the Macedonian community had the 
same fault as the city-state — it was too small ; and 
no way had been found to increase it, and at the 
same time preserve its unity. It had further a fault, 
natural to landed aristocracies, that, while possessing 
a narrow territory, it did not increase its wealth by 
sea-going trade. Macedonia was a poor land, 2 and 
its clansmen a numerically insignificant unity in the 
midst of hordes in political disunion. How could 

greatest marshals, e. g. Antipater, Parmenio, or Craterus, while it 
does include men too old to have been his " aequales." The eight 
were : Lysimachus and Peucestas, Ptolemy Lagus, Hephaestion, 
Perdiecas, Leonnatus, Aristinous, and Peithon. 

1 As proved to be the case when first Macedonians were set 
over subjugated races. See Arr. vi. 27. 

2 'H ot'8c fioo-Kovo-a v/xa<i KoAa>?, says Alexander to the mutineers 
(\rr. vii. 9). The mines of Pangaeus were in Thracian or Amphi- 
politan hands ; the rich corn-lands, forests, and ports of Chalcidice 
under the Olynthian power. (See the speech of the Acanthian at 
Sparta in the year 383, Xen., Hell. v. 2. 16, and an inscription 
relating to a treaty between Philip's father and the Olynlhians 
about B.C. 389, H. Sauppe, Liscr. Mac. Quattuor, in Jahresbericht 
etc., Weimar, 1847.) 



22 PHILIP 

a source of wealth and a way of expansion be found ? 
It looked little likely in the year 382. 

Of Philip's father, Amyntas, we know little but his 
misfortunes and his death. Philip's mother, Eurydice, 
belonged to the Bacchiad house of Lyncestis 1 — that 
is, to the enemy — and in after years she was to betray 
her husband. 2 Marriage may have been the price 
paid by Amyntas for the recovery of his throne from 
the pretender Argaeus, perhaps the reigning Lyn- 
cestian of the time. 3 If ever the veil be lifted from 
the events of early Macedonian history, we shall 
find, perhaps, that the vicissitudes of the royal house 
were connected directly with changes in the balance 
of power in Greece. The Athenian Aeschines 4 once 
claimed, in Philip's presence, that it was Athens 
that had supported his predecessors. The orator 
reminded the king of the good will shown and good 
deeds done by the Athenian city towards his father, 
who in his turn had adopted the Athenian Iphicrates 
as his son. From an Attic inscription 5 we know 
that Macedonian envoys were at Athens about 382, 
and a scholiast 6 alleges that Amyntas owed his re- 
covered throne in some sense to Athens. In the 

1 Strabo, p. 326. Q Justin, vii. 4. 

2 Philip, born in 382, had two brothers, and perhaps a sister, 
older than himself. The marriage of his parents must be put 
back, therefore, to 386, or earlier. Amyntas regained his throne 
in 360, according to Clinton's chronology (Fasti Hell, ii., App. 
ch. 4). 

4 F. L. 26 ff. 5 CI. A. ii. 155, and Add. 

6 On Aesch. F. L. 26. 



PHILIP'S EARLY YEARS 23 

turmoil which followed the murder of Philip's eldest 
brother, it was Iphicrates, says the orator, who 
secured the throne for the second son ; and the latter, 
when he had slain his "Thebizing" guardian, allied 
himself with Timotheus, newly come against Amphi- 
polis. Certainly there are notable coincidences. The 
fall of Athenian power on the Thracian coasts 
succeeds a long peace in Macedonia, and is followed 
by the murder of Archelaus and ten years of turmoil. 
Amyntas establishes his throne ever more firmly as 
the second Athenian league is formed. Leuctra is 
followed by the murder of Alexander II., by Pau- 
sanias' rebellion, and by the domination of the 
" Thebizing " Ptolemy Alorites. 

In the face of the statements of Aeschines it is 
impossible to doubt that it was a maxim of Athenian 
policy to support the Macedonian House, 1 and it 
ceases to be wonderful that, in years to come, Philip 
himself, when Athens had most provoked his ven- 
geance and was most at his mercy, so signally stayed 
his hand. 

The boy was brought up at Pella 2 — a mean place 
then, compared with its after-splendour, but still the 

1 See Schafer, Demosthenes, ii. p. G, for evidence of connection 
between Athens and Macedon. 

2 Strabo, p. 330. He may have been born there ; for although, 
in 383, Pella was in Olynthian hands (Xen. Hell. v. 2, 13), the 
appearance of Eudamidas with his Spartan expeditionary force in 
the winter of that year (which was followed by the revolt of 
Potidaea from Olynthus), most probably caused the Olynthians to 
retire within their own territory, where Teleutias seemed to have 
found them on his arrival in the spring of 382. 



24 PHILIP 

greatest of Macedonian cities. 1 It had a beach on 
the Ludian lake, and an outlet to the sea — not, in those 
days, the sluggish creek, lost in pestiferous marsh, which 
the traveller sees now — and it was the centre of such 
trade and civilization as existed in the Emathian plain. 
There the young Philip learned the rudiments of 
Greek letters, and grew to be, even among Hellenes, 
cultured and polite. It was a time of peace and 
comparative security under the shelter of Greek 
supremacy. Sparta had broken the Olynthian power 
when Philip was three years old, and given back to 
his father the lands and cities about the Thermaic 
gulf. Jason of Pherae also became Amyntas' ally 
and friend. 2 Philip had reached the age of six when 
the battle of Naxos was won by Athens, and Spartan 
influence replaced by hers ; but the royal house of 
Macedon became probably only the more secure by 
the change, for strong Athenian fleets, maintaining 
friendly relations with Amyntas, 3 were constantly 
about the coasts till 371. In that year an event, 
of far graver import than the sea-fight at Naxos, 
shook Greece from end to end — the battle of Leuctra. 

1 Cf. Strabo, I.e., with Xen. I.e., and Dem. de Cor. 68. The 
old capital and royal burial-place was Aegae, or Edessa, a short day's 
journey higher up the plain ; but Pella had long been, it appears, 
the mint and home of the court. I visited its site iu 1887, but 
found that the city had vanished as though it had never been. 
The plateau above the marsh, on which it stood, is now plough 
land, where a few fragments of marble and mouldings and many 
coins have been turned up from time to time. See for descrip- 
tion, H. P. Tozer, Highlands of Turkey, vol. i. p. 153, and an 
article of mine in Macmillan's Magazine, 18S9, Aug., p. 287. 

2 Diod. xv. 60. 8 Aesch. F. L. 26. 



ALEXANDER THE SECOND 25 

Its wave of disturbance did not travel at once 
northwards. Amyntas reigned for two years more, 
beset with domestic trouble, but died after all in his 
bed, leaving his throne to Alexander, his firstborn, 
when Philip, his youngest, was barely thirteen years 
old. 

The passing of a sceptre from old hands to young 
in a half-barbarous land seldom is effected in peace ; 
and in Macedonia in 369 the times were ripe for 
trouble. The repressive influence of the old imperial 
cities of Hellas, whose interest it had been to main- 
tain peace in the inner country, operated no longer, 
for they were overshadowed now by a ;.ew power — 
that of Thebes — which had no foreign empire, and 
a policy directly contrary to theirs. Accordingly, the 
old feud between suzerain and feudatory broke out 
again, and the more bitterly for long repression. 
We know almost nothing of this stormy year, 369. 
The young king appears to have courted southern 
help by rendering service to the great Larissan house 
of the Aleuadae, 1 and perhaps he enrolled some of 
their Thessalians among his "Companions;" 2 but 
to no good purpose. The kingdom was torn between 
rival forces. On the one side was a " pretender," 
Pausanias, backed by Greek swords, drawing half 

1 Diod. xv. 61, (57. 

2 Anaximenes (fr. 7) says that he increased his irdxpoi and 
7re£eVa<.poi. As these terms, I believe, included already all true 
Macedonians, Alexander must have enrolled members of other 
races, and was little likely to include his feudatories. 



26 PHILIP 

Macedonia after him ; 1 on the other, stood the Lyn- 
cestian queen-mother, already enamoured during her 
husband's lifetime of her son-in-law, Ptolemy of Alorus, 
and now plotting against her son. Heedless of the 
advance of Pausanias, she and her paramour put 
their plot into execution. A troop of dancers was 
introduced to the king's presence, and in the midst 
of the performance of a war-dance, 2 they fell upon 
and slew him. The immediate result, however, was 
disastrous to the plotters. If we are to interpret 
closely Aeschines' speech to Philip, Pausanias at once 
advanced with giant strides, supported now by the 
infuriate adherents of the murdered king. 3 Anthemus, 
Tlierma, Stiepsa, and other strong places opened 
their gates to him. But once more Athens, anxious 
for her remaining dependencies, interfered on behalf 
of the royal house. Invited by Eurydice, the famous 
Iphicrates, who was on the coast, went up to the 
court. The murderess of Amyntas' firstborn besought 
the Athenian, by the memory of Amyntas, to save 
Amyntas' children, and she bade the elder boy, 
Perdiccas, take the old man's hands, and the younger, 
Philip, embrace his knees. Thus Aeschines describes 
the scene, veiling the fact that the chief actress was 

1 Aesch. F. L. 27 ; cf. Justin, vii. 4. 

2 Marsyas. fr. ap. Jthen., xiv. p. 629 D. The name of one 
assassin, Apolloplianes of Pydna, is preserved by Dem., F. L. 195. 

3 This must have been the meaning of ot Sokovvtcs civat <}>l\oi, 
who "betrayed" Eurydice after the murder (Aesch. F. L. 26). 
There is no means of telling whom or what this "pretender" 
Pausanias represented. Aeschines describes him as <f>vyas pXv &v, 
tw Kaipw 8' lo"xxnjiv. About the time of Perdiccas' death, in 360 or 
359, he reappeared with Thracian backing. 



PERDICCAS 27 

an adulterous mother who had slain her child. 
The veteran general could hardly have felt much 
emotion, but he knew that his best policy lay in 
supporting the legitimate succession. He took up 
the quarrel, chased Pausanias beyond the border, and 
set Perdiccas on the throne. 

In the councils of the minor the Lyncestian mother 
and her paramour continued to rule, and the latter, 
whom Aeschines calls Regent, others call King. 1 The 
favour of Athens was worth much, but of more worth 
in those days was the favour of Thebes. Pelopidas 
chanced to march with a Theban force into Thessaly 
early in 367 ; 2 Ptolemy opened negotiations, and 
invited the famous captain to Pella. Terms were 
agreed to, but a substantial guarantee of good faith 
was demanded of the slippery Regent. The young 
king's brother, Philip, was already a pledge in the 
hands of Eurydice's kinsmen, as security for certain 
payments, probably blackmail levied on the plainsmen, 
whose obedience to the Regent and the Lyncestian 
adulteress was far from assured. Pelopidas agreed 
to support the Lyncestians, and their illustrious 

1 Diodorus, xv. 71, 77, and Dexippus ap. Syncell., p. 263 B. 

2 It must have been in very early spring, for Pelopidas went up 
to Susa also in 367. If he took the usual overland route through 
Asia Minor, he would start not later than April, for the passes are 
open then. He would pass the summer in Susa and return in the 
cool of autumn. I cannot follow Clinton in assigning more than one 
year to Alexander II. Surely Aeschines implies that the interval 
between the deaths of father and son was of the briefest. Allow a 
few months for the establishment of Perdiccas and Ptolemy, and for 
the latter's change of policy, and we reach 367 for the year of Philip's 
removal to Thebes. 



28 PHILIP 

hostage was transferred to his custody together with 
twenty-nine other noble youths ; and thus at the 
age of fifteen Philip came to spend three most 
momentous years of his boyhood at the house of 
Pammenes in Thebes. 1 

Thebes, in 368, was the most powerful state in 
south-eastern Europe. Her title to pre-eminence 
rested singly on her citizen soldiery, and she instilled 
into the young prince, during his sojourn within her 
walls, the lesson that nothing need be impossible to 
a worthy and confident leader of big battalions. 

1 As is well known, our authorities for the circumstances of 
Philip's transference to Thebes cannot be reconciled altogether. 
Diodorns (xvi. 2) says it was Amyntas who placed him with the 
" Illyrians ; " Justin (vii. 5) that it was Alexander II. Diodorus 
says that the Illyrians passed him on to Thebes ; Justin, that 
Alexander did so " interjecto . . . tempore ;" Aeschines (F. L. 26, 
28) that he was still with his mother when Alexander had just 
died ; Plutarch (Pel. 26) that Ptolemy gave him to Pelopidas. 
The last two are the best authorities, and the coincidence they show 
with Pelopidas' well-known Thessalian expedition is strong. Philip 
stayed three years in Thebes, and returned therefore in 364, just 
when his brother had slain Ptolemy and reasserted himself in Mace- 
donia — also a strong coincidence. A further question arises, why 
" Illyrians " should have sent their hostage to Thebes ? I believe 
(with Abel, though I differ from him in one or two details) that 
much of the confusion is due to the common use of the name 
"Illyrians" for Lyncestians. The "Illyrians" here are Eurydice's 
kinsmen, holding Philip as hostage for the good faith of Perdiccas and 
Ptolemy (a Pierian of Alorus), whom they were allowing to reign on 
sufferance. Their interest and that of Thebes were identical : both 
were anti-Athenian, and wished to keep Macedonia out of Iphicrates' 
hands ; and it is the Lyncestians who therefore hand over Philip, 
with Ptolemy's consent. Diodorus and Justin, finding that Philip 
was given to " Illyrians," and not aware that Lyncestians are meant, 
have to go back to the reigns of Alexander or Amyntas to find an 
" Illyrian " invasion. 



THE THEBANS 29 

The Theban of the fourth century (with certain 
brilliant exceptions) was of an animal type, common 
in aristocratic states. Generations of his forefathers 
had devoted every energy of mind and body to the 
pleasures of the flesh. The Boeotian plains gave the 
Theban citizens meat and corn, wine, women, and 
horses, in abundance ; the nearest hills afforded them 
the varied excitement of the chase. They were well- 
grown, evppcoa-TOL toZs orcofxao-Lu, l fond of extending 
exuberant muscles in the gymnasium, 2 and they fought 
for the love of fighting. A full-blooded, boisterous 
race, proud of their past, 3 they were determined to 
enjoy the present. Born to domineer, and bend to 
their purposes all who could subserve their pleasures, 
they became a menace to their neighbours whenever 
they needed space for their healthy stock, but 
bounded ambition by the satisfaction of appetite. 
For the barren glory of leading Hellas they cared 
not a jot. They despised commerce as men who 
know that their internal resources are amply suffi- 
cient to supply internal wants. Handicraft they 
held beneath the dignity of gentlemen, and denied 
a magistracy to a citizen if he had followed a 
trade within ten years. 4 Their capital lay near 
good harbours on three seas, but only once sent 
out a fleet, and a contemporary historian, 5 who saw 
Thebes at her highest and her lowest, remarks that 
she might have been leader of Greece, had she not 

1 Diod. xv. 50; Pint. Pel. 3. 2 Diod. I.e. ■ Nep. Epam. 2. 

8 Diod. I.e. 4 Arist. Pol. iii. 3. 4. 

5 Ephorus, ap. Strab., p. 400 (cf. Isocr. Phil. 93). 



30 PHILIP 

neglected, in the cultivation of warlike valour, the 
gentle arts of literature and converse with men. 
Even rude Sparta has its School of Sculpture ; but 
no type of art is known to us as Theban, 1 nor do we 
hear of any conspicuous man of letters born actually 
within her walls. Even at the very zenith of her 
power she can base no claim to consideration by 
universal history on those glories which most re- 
deem the political insignificance of other states of 
Hellas. 

Certain qualities which the Thebans shared with 
the Spartans they owed to similar circumstances. 
They, too, were a conquering caste in an alien land. 
What upper Laconia and Messenia were to Sparta, 
the northern Boeotian plain and the Attic marches 
were to Thebes. Like Sparta, Thebes coveted her 
neighbours' lands, and only offered to be federal 
leader when unable to be sovereign lord. The key 
to Boeotian history and Theban character is to be 
found in the relations of the Cadmeian city to her 
neighbour cities. Among them she was an upstart ; 
for tradition maintained, and recent research has 
supported the contention, that Minyan Orchomenus 
in the northern plain was the richer and greater in 
heroic times. 2 Subsequent to that era is the age of 
racial Sittings : the Cadmeians appeared in Thebes, 
whence no one in aftertimes knew certainly, but 

1 There is much Boeotian art of course ; but Theban sculptors 
only appear after the civilizing efforts of Epaminoudas, and none 
attain to pre-eminence. 

2 Cf. Iliad, ii. 494-510 ; and Strabo, p. 401. 



THEBES AND BOEOTIA 31 

men said from the East ; the northern peoples were 
pressed southward by some unknown cause ; and 
Boeotia, like the Peloponnese, was overrun. 1 When 
the turmoil, in which the heroic civilization of the 
Argolid perished, has died away, we find the Minyae 
vanished from Orchomenus, 2 and the cities of Boeotia 
in unwilling dependence on Cadmeian Thebes. They 
would gladly have been beholden to any other lord. 3 
The cities of the Asopus valley looked to Athens, 
the cities of the west and north were ready to rally 
round Orchomenus, should Thebes be weak and out- 
side support strong. Unable to annex them, the 
Cadmeians pose as their federal leaders, and inscribe 
Bouotwv on the coinage of the " League." In the last 
half of the fifth century, the coin-legend changes to 
®7?/3guW, for the Boeotian cities in 447, the dis- 
astrous year of the first battle of Coronea, lose the 
support of Athens. Thebes at once begins to 
bully and reduce the cities to mere appendages — 
TrepioiKOL — of herself, 4 and they fight under her 
banners, in name, but not in fact, a federal army, 5 the 
bolder spirits constantly intriguing with foreign powers 
to regain freedom. 6 Never did a " Confederacy " 

1 Thuc. i. 12. 2 Ibid.iY. 76. 

3 Ibid. iii. 61. 

4 She seizes Plataea (Thuc. ii. 2) and transplants Oropus seven 
stades from the sea (Diod. xiv. 17). 

5 Thuc. iv. 91. The Theban Boeotarchs are in supreme com- 
mand ; the rest wish not to fight. 

6 Cf. for this feeling at a later time, Xen. Hell. iii. 5. The 
Orehomenians admit Lysander to Boeotia, and do not rank with 
the Thebans at Corinth. Hell. iv. 2, 17. 



32 PHILIP 

less merit a name associated with Liberty and Fra- 
ternity. When a foreign power at last prevailed 
against Thebes, the cities one and all rushed into 
its arms. They did, indeed, no better than change 
masters ; but the spectacle of a Spartan garrison in 
the Cadmeia reconciled Orchomenus and Thespiae 
to Spartan men-at-arms within their own walls. 

When Thebes has expelled her foreign lords and 
her own traitors, and made sure that neither Sparta 
nor Athens had power or leisure to hinder, she throws 
off any mask she has ever thought it worth while to 
assume. 1 She establishes Swao-relat in all the cities ; 2 
she makes no secret of her suppression of avTovo/xia, 3 
or her determination to organize Boeotia Kaff ev ; 4 she 
sweeps Plataea again from the face of the earth 
for past offences, and punishes Thespiae hardly less 
severely for having favoured Sparta ; once more she 
lays hands on Oropus, and only spares Orchomenus 
for the moment after Leuctra, to destroy it root 
and branch three years later. 5 At the zenith of her 
power, Thebes was so far from leading a free con- 
federacy that she had appropriated absolutely the 
lands of five of the leading cities of Boeotia — Orcho- 
menus, Chaeronea, Thespiae, Oropus, and Plataea ; 
and the coinage of her supremacy, which bears 
neither Bolcotcov nor %rjfiaia)v, but the name of a 
Theban magistrate, fitly commemorates the notorious 
character of her " League." 

1 See Paus. ix. 13. 2. 2 Hell. v. 4. 46, 63 ; vi. 1. 1. 

8 Ibid. vi. 3. 19. 4 Ibid. v. 2. 16 ; vi. 4. 3 ; Diod. xv. 51. 

6 Cf. Diod. xv. 57, 79. 



THEBAN POLITICS 33 

No wonder the Theban was the " oligarchic man ! " 
He could be no better a democrat than can the 
Englishman or any other member of a dominant 
race in modern times that stands in an imperial 
relation to weaker peoples. When democracy was 
planted in Thebes, it was but a sickly growth, and 
soon died. 1 There were parties indeed in the city 
during her supremacy ; but to call them aristocratic 
and democratic is to use names without meaning. 
Within the established aristocracy there were men of 
liberal views like Epaminondas, and men of more 
conservative and generally accepted views like Pelo- 
pidas ; but the disgrace of Epaminondas in 363 2 
implies not a revolution, but only the temporary 
prevalence in a Tory state of ultra Tory politics. The 
constitution of Thebes has as good a claim as that 
of Sparta to be called changeless. From the days of 
Philolaus 3 to those of Sulla, there is no warrant 
for the existence of political division, except that 
caused by the presence within the walls of a 
" Boeotian " minority identified with the interests of 
the subject cities. This it was, and not a party 
of democratic idealists, that invited the Spartans in 
382 to garrison the Cadmeia. 

Like Sparta in so many of her characteristics and 
circumstances, how different is the history and the 
fame of Thebes ! Sparta, by force or persuasion, 
welds the southern Peloponnese into a peaceful whole, 

1 Arist. Pol. v. 2. 7. 

2 Nep. Epam. 7 ; Pint. Pel. 28 ; Diod. xv. 71. 

3 Arist. Pol. ii. 9. 7. 

3 



34 PHILIP 

and embarks on foreign conquest ; Thebes never 
really assimilates a single subject city. Sparta is 
hardly more comparable to Athens in art and litera- 
ture, but her name is coupled with that of the 
Ionian city as fellow-bearer of the message or Hellenic 
civilization ; Thebes ranks with Thessaly or Epirus. 
The Theban is the equivalent of the Spartan, with the 
most Hellenic features in the nature of the latter left 
out ; reserve and sense of proportion are exchanged 
for overweening pride and unmeasured exultation, and 
the " Leuctric insolence " * of the Theban became a 
byword in Greece. Of devotion to the common weal, 
and anthropomorphic idealism in worship, in which 
consisted the best heritage of Hellas, Spartan history 
can show many evidences, Theban history none. 
The Cadmeian characteristics are those of a conquering 
people of the East ; both in war and in peace they 
foreshadow those of the Ottoman Turk. Tradition, 
various in all else concerning the founders of Thebes, 
agrees in this alone — that the Cadmeian was an 
alien in Boeotia in a far more real sense than the 
Dorian Spartan among the earlier races of the 
Peloponnese. Whether he came from the East or 
the North, whether he was Semite or no, we can at 
least assert that most that is known of him recalls 
the barbarian rather than the Hellene, Cadmus the 
u Phoenician " rather than Amphion and Zethus, his 
rivals in the honour of founding Thebes. The 
familiar legends of Thebes are as gloomy as the 
horrible nature myths of the East. Oedipus, who 
1 Dem. cle Cor. 18; Diod. xvi. 58. Ch. Justin, viii. 1. 



ORIENTALISM OF THEBES 35 

fertilizes his own mother ; the man-eating Sphinx ; 
Actaeon devoured by his hounds ; Agave and her 
hideous orgy ; Dirce tied to the wild bull's horns — all 
these forms of horror find parallels in Thrace Phrygia 
or Phoenicia rather than in Hellas. Even in 371 the 
Theban commanders at Leuctra could debate the 
propriety of offering human sacrifice to the unpro- 
pitious gods ; 1 and, whatever excuses be made for 
the consistent " Medism " of Thebes by modern 
apologists, the fact that the Greeks themselves made 
none, but scored her crime against her when those of 
Argos and Thessaly were forgiven, suspected her of 
treachery against Hellas even in 354, 2 and formally 
condemned her for old sins in 335, suggests that 
the contemporary world believed her to incline to the 
barbarian of her own preference and her good will. 
The Theban is oriental in his sluggish fatalism, 
oriental in his addiction to and open avowal of 
sexless love, 3 oriental in his orgiastic worships 
and in his orgiastic feasts. The supper of the Pole- 
marchs on the night of the Liberation in 378 might 
have been held in a banquet hall of Babylon ! 

Unintelligent fatalists of powerful build, whose 
ambition is limited to their bodily wants, make 
unequalled soldiery. The athletic gentleman of 
Thebes and the stolid farmer of the Teneric plain 
supplied as fine material as there was in the world 
for the solid phalanx of the days of " political " 
armies. Theban military strength was notorious in 

1 Pint. Pel. 21. 2 Dem. de Symm. 33. 

3 Cf. on the Sacred Band, Plutarch, Pel. 18 ff. 



36 PHILIP 

Greece before the Theban "supremacy." Slow to 
stir, the Cadmeian city was a dangerous foe when 
roused, and her weight, thrown into the scale at 
critical moments, had changed more than once the 
course of history. She, not Sparta, checked the flow- 
ing tide of Athenian conquest at Coronea in 447, and 
she, more than Sparta, in 424 restored equilibrium 
during the Ten Years' War. Confessedly the third 
power in Greece, she showed little fear of the first 
or second, stood with neither one nor the other 
at the Peace of 421, and boldly urged her views on 
victorious Sparta in 404. Feeling herself wronged 
in the matter of the spoil of Athens, she dared to 
affront the conqueror, 1 and suffered only a Pyrrhic 
defeat at Coronea at the hands of the best general 
and the best army that ever fought for Sparta. 

But fatalistic soldiers, to be effective in attack, 
must be animated by a brilliant leader ; otherwise, 
like the best Turkish troops of the present da} T , 
they fight their best only at bay, and relapse into 
inaction when stress is past. 2 In the hands of a 
great commander, however, soldiery such as the 
Theban makes a finer fighting material than the 
quick-witted Athenian, who understood his peril, or 
the mechanical Spartan, who fought from sheer 
habit. 

Therefore the simultaneous appearance of two great 
men at Thebes in the fourth century was fraught 

1 Hell. iii. 4. 4. 

2 Cf. the attitude of the Thebans after killing Lysander at 
Haliartus in 395. Hell. iii. 5. 21, sq. 



THEBAN SUPREMACY 37 

with possibilities exceptional even in an age of 
small city-states, where a constructive individual 
was always a most potent force. The avalanches of 
eastern conquest in all ages have been set rolling by 
the great man, and Thebes was an eastern state. 
The lesson was not lost on Philip : the man who had 
witnessed at close quarters the careers of Epami- 
nondas and Pelopidas, estimated later the potential 
danger from Thebes at a very high value. While 
he ignored Sparta, and courteously left Athens alone, 
the founder of Macedonian supremacy paid Thebes the 
rude compliment of garrisoning the Cadmeia with 
Macedonian men-at-arms ; Alexander razed all but 
her temples to the ground. 

Great men are those that use their opportunities, 
and the fame of Epaminondas is not less well deserved 
because external conditions were very favourable to 
the expansion of Thebes in the fourth century. The 
great city-states — Sparta and Athens — were suffering 
already from that premature exhaustion which is the 
penalty of too intense a political life. The sloth of the 
former was thrown in her teeth by her allies in 376 ; * 
the slackness of the latter is the monotonous theme of 
her orators. Athens was feeling the obliteration of her 
free working class, which Periclean state-socialism, 
based on slave labour, had brought about; Sparta 
was combating the steady decrease of her nobility. 2 

1 Hell. v. 4. 60. 

2 The oXiyavdfUDTTia of Sparta in the fourth and third centuries 
may be seen in the diminution of the Spartiate army by one half 
after Leuctra — 12 Ao'^oi instead of 24, as of old. Cf. Hell. vii. 
4. 20 with 5. 10. Aristotle, Pol. ii. 6. 



38 piiilip 

Nor, again, is credit less due to Epaminondas because 
he was aided in the task of rousing the Thebans by 
the action of Agesilaus. 1 A taunt levelled at the 
latter by a political rival, 2 that he was teaching 
the Thebans the art of war, was justified enough in 
fact; the boldness of the Thebans, who, four years 
before Leuctra, gratuitously and alone attacked a 
superior force of Spartiatae at Tegyrae, 3 after three 
years of Spartan invasion, smacks of contempt, bred 
already by familiarity. 

Without Epaminondas, the Thebans of his genera- 
tion would have been as their ancestors and posterity 
— men abiding in their tents, eating, drinking, and 
lusting. 4 With Epaminondas their whole character 
was for a time changed ; and Philip, living in close 
intercourse with that great man, and watching the 
effect of his personality upon a people singularly like 
that over which he hoped one day to rule, learned a 
lesson in the power of individual will, of which his 
later life was a consistent exposition. 

Alas ! no master-hand has drawn for us the 
portrait of this greatest of Philip's teachers, but 
his figure detaches itself from the crowd that passes 
over the historic stage. He is the ideal Hellene, for 
all the Cadmeian blood in his veins, as cultured 
as an Athenian, as disciplined as a Spartan, pre- 
eminent in all provinces of his powers. Not less 
brilliant and forceful a political idealist than Pericles, 
he far transcends the Athenian in the ruder fields of 

1 Plut. Pd. 15. 2 Pint. Ages. 26. 3 Plut. Pel. 16. 

4 Nepos, E_pam. ad Jin. ; Diod. xv. 39. 



EPAMINONDAS AND PELOPIDAS 39 

action. Too rigorous, 1 and too complex to be wholly 
understood or loved by the rude Thebans, as he 
understood and loved them, he won their blind 
obedience by sheer dominance of will and their awe- 
struck respect by consistent subordination of self to 
their common good. Many of his countrymen were 
powerful athletes and brave soldiers, but, their equal 
in physical excellence, Epaminondas stands alone in 
intellectual eminence, a devoted student of philosophy, 
an orator in the first rank, a master in music. 2 
Majestic and unapproachable as a Phidian god, one 
story only connects him with a softer passion, as 
Greeks understood such passions : for the rest, the 
private man is absorbed in the patriot, who dies 
happy that his soldiers have won Mantinea, and that 
two great victories, rather than human offspring, will 
perpetuate his name. 

Pelopidas, his famous henchman, is better known 
to us than his master, although one of his biographers 
admits that he was " magis historicis quam vulgo 
notus." 3 He is a more human figure, easier to 
portray, a type of his nation purged of its coarsest 
qualities. Removed by no such gulf as Epaminondas, 
he was the idol of the Theban people from the 
night when he slew the Polemarchs to the day of his 
reckless death in Thessaly. 4 History credits him 
with neither statesmanlike ideals nor intellectual 
tastes, but with fiery enthusiasm, perfect courage, and 

1 Nepos, Epam. 4. 

2 Id. Epam. 3; Diod. 1. c, and 88. 8 Nepos, Pel. i. 

4 Diod. xv. 81. 



40 PHILIP 

lifelong devotion. 1 He was the fiery soul of the body 
politic, the link between the brain and the members. 
Liberator of the city, sole victor of Tegyrae, animating 
spirit of the Leuctran charge, dauntless avenger of 
the oppressed in Thessaly, Pelopidas glitters through 
the short, glorious epoch of Theban history like a 
knight errant of the days of chivalry. Historians 
have not hesitated to set the impetuous soldier below 
Epaminondas ; but in turn they must maintain that 
to awaken the state, the hot recklessness of the one 
was not less necessary in Thebes than the cool 
calculation of the other. 

There were elements in the coarser but stronger 
nature of Philip that recall both the great Thebans. 
His union of practical genius with appreciation of the 
power of culture, and his comprehensive vision of the 
co-operating forces which constitute a Power, elevate 
him to the same pinnacle with Epaminondas. In his 
sympathy with the rudest of his soldiery and in the 
rough good fellowship which so often won hearts in 
spite of themselves, he resembled, consciously or not, 
Pelopidas. And, did we know more of the details of 
history during either the supremacy of Thebes or the 
reign of Philip, it might be possible to detect often, 
in the latter's words and deeds, distinct reminiscences 
of the great men with whom he must have been 
brought in contact, either directly or through their 
chief disciples Gorgias, Pammenes (with whom the 
young hostage lived in most intimate relations), or 
others now unknown. Certainly Philip had had a 
1 Plut. Pel. 4 ; Nep. Pel. 4. 



PHILIP LEAVES THEBES 41 

singular object-lesson in the power of the individual ; 
certainly it had been given to him to see what a 
new military idea could do -for infantry warfare. 
The last stage in the efficiency of a citizen army had 
been reached, and new formations, new weapons, 
and new tactics must be developed by any one who 
should aspire to supremacy. 

Philip was no longer in Thebes when her sun passed 
its zenith. 1 He heard of the deaths of Pelopidas 
and Epaminondas when once more in Macedonia, 
whither he had returned in 364, after Perdiccas his 
brother had slain his self-styled guardian and resumed 
the reins of power. He found the head of his house 
co-operating with Timotheus the Athenian against 
Amphipolis. Nothing, however, came of repeated 
efforts of Athens to seize the key of the mines ; and 
Perdiccas, when a Theban fleet began to hover about 
the Thracian seas, seems to have changed his game ; 
before 361 he had taken Amphipolis into his own 
possession. 

For the moment the Macedonian kins; seemed 
strong. He established his brother Philip in a semi- 
independent principality, for he had by this time an 
infant son to succeed to his own throne. But new 
trouble was brewing. The Lyncestian Athaliah had 
vowed vengeance for her leman's murder. The 
death of Epaminondas, and general peace in Greece 

1 We do not know why the hostage was released. Perhaps those 
in authority at Thebes felt that by this time they could rely upon his 
admiration or his fear, and that he might exert a useful influence in 
his own country. 



42 PHILIP 

deprived Perdiccas of the active support of Thebes, 
even as his own action in the matter of Amphipolis 
had shut out possible help from Athens. Eurydice 
seized the moment. The fiery cross went out among 
her tribesmen of Lyncestis, and a cloud of hillmen 
and " Illyrians " burst on Emathia. Perdiccas faced 
them and fell. His clansmen swore allegiance to the 
infant son and to his uncle Philip as Regent. But 
swiftly a new storm broke on the north, where the 
Paeonians were out ; from the east the old pretender, 
Pausanias, was advancing with a Thracian host at 
his back; and the angry Athenians welcomed the 
opportunity to nominate also a creature of their own. 
The heart of such a cyclone was no place for a baby 
king. Macedonia clamoured for a man, and, per- 
suaded at last, Philip climbed into the perilous 
throne. 1 

1 So Justin, vii. 5. His words are, "Din non regem sed tutorem 
pupilli egit. At ubl graviora bella imminebant serumque auxilium 
in exspectatlone infantis erat, compulsus a populo regnum suscepit." 
A mass meeting of the clan probably took place, similar to that 
held by the army at Babylon after the death of xMexander the 
Great, in which it was decided to await the birth of Roxana's 
child. 



ACCESSION OF PHILIP 43 



The new king could count on little but bis faithful 
clansmen, bis hopes, and his youth. He had legions 
of enemies, no money, no allies, and, for inheritance, 
the sins of his fathers. Had he boasted that he 
could make a nation and an empire out of nothing, 
he hardly had desired a more genuine opportunity. 1 
But in personal capital he was rich. He had 
been trained in the school of the two greatest 
men of his age ; nature had given him a frame of 
iron, and the Pythagorean doctors the habit to 
nurture it hardly; neither the many lusts of his 
flesh 2 nor the pride of his body held him back a 
moment from action, and he could sacrifice to his 
ambition his own person as resolutely as that of his 
foe. " What a man," said Demosthenes 3 after his 
death, " had we to fight ! For the sake of power and 
dominion he had an eye thrust out, a shoulder 
broken, an arm and a leg mortified. Whichever 
member fortune demanded, that he cast away, so the 
rest might be in glory and honour." His intellectual 
force was of the first order, his perception as rapid 

1 Cf. Diod. xvi. 95. 

2 See Polybius, quoting Theopompus (viii. 11). 

3 Be Cor." 67. 



44 PHILIP 

and certain as the action which followed it. The 
width of his sympathies, coupled with a radical 
insincerity of character, enabled him to adapt himself 
to all things and all men — to talk with Aristotle, or 
to drink to excess of good fellowship with boors and 
bravos. 1 No obstacles of principle beset his path, 
and two-thirds of the anecdotes recorded of him 
illustrate his perfidy. To one thing, however, he 
was never false — his personal ambition as involved 
in the greatness of his own people. Self-sufficing, 
masterful to all men, without scruples and without 
foibles, he was a man rather to fear than to love. 
Like a Napoleon, he could inspire those whom he 
kept at a distance with enthusiastic admiration for 
his strength and his star ; but perhaps no heart of 
man or woman ever beat for him with gentler passion. 
Philip's character had been formed in the school of 
exile and danger by the time that he was twenty- 
three ; and already he had proposed to go far. For 
the moment, Athens was his most dangerous foe. 
The Macedonian had recourse to his first weapon, 
craft ; he declared her long estranged colony, the 
mining city Amphipolis, independent of himself. 
Athens turned to the lure, let the Macedonian chase 
her pretender to his ships, and ratified a peace 
with the first of the many ambassadors she was to 
receive from Philip. The other pretender, Pau- 
sanias, found his forces melt away ; Philip knew that 
he had only to give the Thracians and Paeonians gold 

1 Cf. Plutarch, Bern. 16, who calls him a "sponge," and 
Theopompus, quoted ahove. 



THE FIRST WINTER 45 

while he prepared his steel. The Illyrian-Lyncestian 
host, however, fought for a cause and a woman not 
to be bought ; but it stayed at the sight of Philip's 
energy and the approach of winter, and he gained a 
few months' space to breathe. 

His clansmen's spirits rose, 1 and their faith centred 
in him. Here was the nucleus of an army, but as 
yet too small and too little professional. Philip must 
train and arm this Clan like Greeks, and swell their 
number by the only method open to him as yet — 
the hiring of mercenaries. But first and foremost 
he had need of money. Ports and ships the Mace- 
donian did not possess, but the mines on Pangaeus 
above Amphipolis, belonged as much to him as to 
any one. He went cautiously to work in the matter, 
for fear of alarming Athens. A number of Thasian 
miners came to the mainland, and settled at Crenides 
on Pangaeus, apparently as spontaneous colonists, 
but (beyond doubt, when we consider after events) 
on Philip's invitation. 2 

The winter was spent by Philip's recruiting ser- 
geants in enlisting soldiers of fortune, and by him- 
self in training his clansmen to be the soul of the 
new army. He went to work as Agesilaus had done 
forty years before, when he trained the army at 
Ephesus, which he hoped to lead to Babylon. Philip 
taught his Macedonians the Greek drill and tactics, 
constantly exercised them under arms, and made 
them cover as much as five and thirty miles a day in 
heavy marching order, each man with flour for a 
1 Diod. xvi. 3. 2 Id. I.e. Cf. Strabo, p. 331. 



46 PHILIP 

month and full baggage. 1 No personal effects would 
the king allow any foot-soldier to place on a vehicle ; 2 
and his discipline was more than Spartan. He once 
heard that a Tarentine captain had taken a hot bath. 
" A Macedonian woman washes in cold water in 
childbed ! " exclaimed the king, and dismissed him 
from his command ; and at a later period, we hear 
that two distinguished officers were banished their 
country for introducing a prostitute into camp. 3 
Knowing Philip's discipline of self, we may say safely 
that he asked his men to do nothing that he did 
not do habitually. Emulation was awakened by 
the institution of contests in military gymnastics, 
which Alexander copied at a later period. 4 Philip 
himself wrestled and boxed in the common arena, 5 
drank with his knights, and was prodigal of good- 
fellowship and bounty. 6 Little by little he welded 
all together and to himself, taught the foot-soldiers 
to stand firm as a Theban phalanx, and the knights 
to manoeuvre at his will, not merely to skirmish or 
pursue : and by this means and that, when the 
season of 358 opened, he was at the head of six 
hundred knights and ten thousand infantry, the like 
of which for discipline had not been seen north of 
Olympus. 

The Paeonians surrendered after a single engage- 
ment. Bardylis, leader of the Lyncestian-Illyrian 

1 Diotl. xvi. 3 ; Polyaen. iv. 2. 10 ; Frontin. iv. 1. 6. 

2 Frontin. 1. c. 3 Polyaen. iv. 2. 1 and 3. 
4 Diod. xvii. 2. 6 Polyaen. iv. 2. 6. 

6 Cf. Theopomp. fragments 27 and 249; Diod. xvi. 3; Polyaen. 
iv. 9. 



THE ILLYRIAN CAMPAIGN 47 

host, proposed peace on terms uti possidetis. Philip 
demanded that the Lyncestian towns be surren- 
dered at discretion and the Illyrian allies be sent 
away. The armies met, and Philip experimented for 
the first time in the new tactics, which were to crush 
Greece and conquer Asia. The foe was in solid 
formation; Philip opposed to them the phalanx, ^ 
strengthened especially on the left by the cavalry. 
He led his solid centre and right to engage the whole 
barbarian front, keeping his left in reserve, till the 
foe's formation became somewhat disordered. Then 
the real attack was developed; the Macedonian 
Knights galloped forward and fell on flank and 
rear; the phalanx pushed into the front of the 
disordered mass, while the cavalry rode in from the 
left. The Illyrians turned and fled. Hundreds were 
cut down in the pursuit, and when it was over, 
and the barbarians came to fetch their dead under 
flag of truce, Philip, with callous treachery, attacked 
again. 1 They left more than seven thousand dead 
on the field ; and Philip swept the lands of the 
feudatories as far as the Lake Ochrida and the 
watershed of the Adriatic. 2 

In one short campaign Philip had restored the 
Macedonian monarchy to a position that it had not 
held since the days of Archelaus. The king was 
once more lord undisputed over the greatest of his 
feudatories. It remained to secure the mines. Philip 

1 Diocl. xvi. 4 ; Frontin. ii. 3. 2. I have used also Polyaenus' 
thoroughly characteristic story (iv. 2. 5) of the second rout. 

2 Diod. xvi. 8. 



48 PHILIP 

marched across his kingdom, gathered up a siege- 
train prepared during the winter, and incontinently 
summoned Amphipolis to surrender. The townsmen 
shut their gates, and sent to apprise Athens ; Philip 
countermoved by courteously informing the Athenians 
that he was acting on their behalf, and would hand 
over the town to their representatives, and in the 
meantime he brought up his engines. The Athenians 
hesitated ; Philip's rams broke the wall ; Amphipolis 
fell in the autumn of 358, and all sympathisers with 
Athens were expelled from her gates. 1 The news 
caused a panic among the Greek towns of Chalcidice, 
and their leader, Olynthus, sent at once to Athens. 
But the latter had more on her hands now than she 
could deal with. Her great dependencies had declared 
the Social War against her, and she was fain to 
content herself with Philip's studious courtesy to her 
captured citizens, and a vague understanding 2 that 
in his own good time he would exchange his new 
conquest against their holding of Pyclna, the outlet 
of Pierian trade. For the present Philip openly ac- 
knowledged as his men the Thasian miners of Cre- 
nides, and built up their settlement into a great 
frontier-fortress, called after himself Philippi, which, 
with Amphipolis, should command not only the 
mines, but the Thracian coast from Galepsus to the 
Nestus. 3 He had found at last his sinews of war. 
The gold ore of Pangaeus presently brought in more 

1 Dem. OJi/utlt. i. 8. 

2 The famous airopprjTov, Dem. Ohjnth. ii. 6. 

3 Strabo, p. 331. 



ARMY MAKING 49 

than a thousand talents yearly, a much larger 
revenue than was accruing at this time from external 
sources to any state except Persia, — and he began to 
strike that extensive coinage * of staters which pene- 
trated to Britain, and originated the types of certain 
of our early coins. 2 

In the winter of 358 Philip could begin in 
earnest the great work which he had conceived 
at Thebes — the creation of a national standing 
army. 

He cannot have been unconscious that his work 
would prove in the event not merely military. If 
his national army was to be more than an organiza- 
tion of his own clansmen, he must incorporate the 
feudatories ; and whenever the army should become 
an accomplished fact, there would be in Macedonia no 
longer a disunion of tribes, but the unity of a nation. 
It is not to be supposed that his main object was the 
promotion of a political union, nor indeed that in 358 
he had that end more consciously in view, than had 
the organizers of the Prussian military system in 
1864 ; but neither he was not more ignorant than 
they of the unifying influence of common service in 
a great war. Salamis had consolidated the Athenian 
Demos, and Leuctra made Boeotia almost one in 
sentiment with Thebes. Community of hope passes 
in very short time into community of tradition. 

1 Diod. xvi. 8. 

2 The remarkable series, illustrating the degeneration of the 
type, is well known. Philip's original staters have been found in 
greater numbers than almost any other gold coins of antiquity. 

4 



50 PHILTP 

As the Germans in 1870, so the Macedonians in 352 
marched out an Alliance to return a Union. Philip's 
claim to rank among great creative statesmen is not 
that he foreknew all the ultimate results of his action, 
but that he seized in their inception and directed 
successive developments. Both his ideal, and his 
knowledge of the means to attain it, grew with the 
growth of events. If in 358 it did not rise above 
the consolidation of the military strength of 
Macedonia, and chance in the main made him the 
creator of Macedonian political unity, it is very 
certain that he had come to be possessed by a clear 
conception even of the unification of all Hellas, 1 when 
he spent his last two years in enlisting the Greeks 
for common service with Macedonians in a great war. 
Twelve years later again his son, rising to a con- 
ception of world-wide empire on the stepping-stone 
of his father's pan hellenic kingdom, dreamed of 
effacing the distinction of Macedonian, Hellene, and 
Asiatic, by making all march shoulder to shoulder to 
the conquest of Africa and Europe. 

A national standing army was a new thing in 
those days. The world was familiar with armies, 
national, but not standing, levies of citizens, or the 
subjects of a king, called out for particular campaigns 
and relegated presently to private occupations. Even 
the most ' professional ' of such armies, that of 

1 Holm (Gr. Gesch. iii. ch. xvii. p. 278) and others date this 
conception and Philip's Asian schemes almost to the beginning of 
his reign, hut on no evidence. Both evidence and probability are 
all for later development. 



GREEK ARMIES 51 

Sparta, was not kept constantly under arms, and 
took a more soldierly than civic character only 
through constantly mounting guard over a dis- 
affected population. The world was becoming 
familiar also with armies, standing, but not national, 
maintained at various epochs by kings and governors 
of Persia or Egypt, commercial cities like Carthage, 
or individual adventurers such as the elder Dionysius 
of Syracuse, or Jason of Pherae. Such forces as 
theirs were difficult to control, devoid of esprit de 
corps, liable to seduction, and withal enormously 
expensive. The citizen army, on the other hand, was 
either sheer militia, incapable of any but the simplest 
manoeuvres, or very small in numbers, and in both 
cases difficult to retain in the field. Philip's new 
army was to combine the merits of both the civic 
and the mercenary; its chief constituent was to 
be a large force, derived from his own subjects, 
imbued with national spirit, and induced by rewards 
and prizes of war to make soldiering a profession, 
and remain long enough with the colours to acquire 
drill and discipline superior to the best mercenary 
armies. A professional army with a national spirit 
— that was the new idea ; and Philip, equally great 
in practice and theory, intended to add later a new 
organization, a new weapon, and new tactics. But 
the introduction of those novelties' detail must 
depend on the successful realization of the main 
principle ; for only an army perfect in cohesion, 
temper, and drill can profit by an elaborate organiza- 
tion, make effective use of a weapon of abnormal 



52 PHILIP 

character, or be depended upon to execute rapid 
scientific evolutions in the face of an enemy. 

Neither an army nor a nation is made in a day. 
The six years which succeeded the capture of Amphi- 
polis and preceded the first serious attempt on Greece, 
probably saw in Macedonia the birth of both one 
and the other ; but Philip was engaged all his life 
in completing his work. Time alone could cause the 
all-important tradition to grow. At the beginning 
of his reign, Alexander had still to face some political 
reaction on the part of the feudatories, and to beware 
a little longer of the Lyncestian ; but in his army 
of Asia there is left hardly a trace of race hatred. 
Philip, in fact, had completed his military creation 
ere his death. In many details of organization his 
system was modified by both his son and his son's 
successors, till it became crystallized in the corps 
d'armee known as the Macedonian to the tactical 
writers of Roman times ; but it is practically certain 
that the army which won Granicus, Issus, and 
Arbela was the army of Philip, and that we may 
use the authorities for the early campaigns of Alex- 
ander as evidence for the father's work. We have 
detailed information of the reorganization of certain 
corps at Susa, and of the whole force after Alexander's 
return from India, but no hint of any earlier changes. 
It was the opinion of antiquity that Alexander 
received his Asian army from his father ; 1 and it 
must be our opinion also if we reflect on the little 
leisure enjoyed by Alexander from the first moment 

1 Frontin. iv. 2, 4. 



PHILIP'S CREATION 53 

he ascended his throne, and on the reputation 
already possessed far and wide by his Macedonian 
soldiery before he had met any Persian army in 
the field. 1 ' 

It was the unanimous opinion of antiquity also 
that Philip did his work alone. No one of his 
marshals is ever credited with a share. Parmenio, 
of whom his king said that he was the only general 
he had ever known, 2 and Antipater, the future regent 
of Europe, alone among them rose above mediocrity. 
The rest of the elder marshals of Alexander — 
Perdiccas, Craterus, Leonnatus, Polysperchon, Anti- 
gonus — shone only with reflected light. The one 
man, whose after-career warrants the supposition 
that he may have helped in a great work of organi- 
zation, is Eumenes, whom Philip found a boy at 
Carclia, 3 and made his secretary in later years. 

Already, before Philip's time, there had existed the 
levy of the Macedonian clan, a race long inured to 
guerilla warfare, 4 and organized to some extent by 
Archelaus 5 and by Philip's eldest brother. 6 The 
problem was, how to incorporate with the clan the 
feudatories who had been regarded hitherto at best 
as its allies ? 7 The clan-spirit lives only in the clan ; 

1 See Memnon's advice to the Persians before Granicus, Ait. 
i. 12. 

2 Pint. ApopJith. Phil. 2. 3 Id. Earn. i. 
4 Justin, vii. 2. 5 Thuc. ii. 100. 

6 Anaxitn. fr. 7. Vide supra, p. 19. 

7 Such as Derdas of Elimia, whose excellent cavalry joined 
Amyntas in 382. Hell. v. 2, 39. 



54 PHILIP 

civic patriotism was exotic outside the city-states of 
Hellas ; national patriotism as yet did not and could 
not exist. Philip knew that what he must create 
was a purely military esprit de corps, and his army 
must be induced to set up itself and himself as gods. 
He began by enrolling all his ^subjects according to 
their local andtribal divisions, and assiominsr them 
to standing territorial regiments. Of the infantry 
we can only infer the fact ; x but the names of certain 
squadrons of the cavalry are actually recorded, for 
example, 17 ' ' kvdefxovcria and rj Ae^ycua, and so are 
the homes of others, " the horsemen from Upper 
Macedonia," or " Bottiaea and Amphipolis." 2 

These standing regiments are known each by its 
colonel' s___name, and quoted thus by Arrian, who 
reflects the military usage of his authorities. A ra^is 
of foot, whose colonel is absent, is still referred to as 
his, though led by another ; and Clitus' cavalry com- 
mand bears his name after his death. 3 

All were called alike " Macedonians ; " the only 
general distinction, made hereafter, is between Mace- 
donians and Greeks, Thracians or Illyrians. 4 

Philip knew, however, that it was not enough to 
make distinct territorial regiments ; he must endow 

1 Prom Arr. iii. 16, where the recruits (foot) from Macedonia 
are distributed into ra£as. Cf. Curt. v. 2. 6, where we are told that 
Alexander's main innovation at Susa was the abolition of all local 
and national divisions throughout the army. 

2 Arr. ii. 9 ; i. 2. 8 Id. iii. 11 ; vi. 6. 

4 So in Diodorus' catalogue of the army about to cross to 
Asia (xvii. 17) ; and passim in Arrian, where the common phrase, 
oi 7re£oi tw MaKeSoVwv {e. g. as early as i. 6), includes every one — 
Lyncestian, Orestian, Elimiote, and the like. 



CORPS D'ELITE 55 

them with common emulation. He conceived there- 
fore for different corps a scale of honour rising towards 
the person of the king. Service in the heavy cavalry 
ranked above service in the foot, for the former were 
more especially the eral/joi, or " Companions " of the 
king ; their generals have the most important com- 
mands in Alexander's army, and their troopers enjoy 
treble share of prize money. 1 Philip promoted whom 
he pleased to this service, 2 Macedonian or Greek, and 
thus in time swelled the six hundred who accom- 
panied him on his first campaign, to the two thousand 
who followed his son to Asia. 3 The whole body of 
iroupoi were " Royals," but one squadron was of 
greatest honour, the " Royal," or " King's Own," 
sometimes called the "Ay-rifia* which took the right 
of the whole line at Arbela. 5 

Most honoured among the Foot was the Corps of 
Guards (viracnTicrTai), specially attached to the person 
of the king. They became very famous in Alexander's 
wars, and later under the name of the Silver Shields 
(' ApyvpdcnrL§e<;). G Like the cavalry they were all 
" Royals," but there was among them a special corps 
cC elite (to dyrj/xa to fiao-ikiKov) 7 one thousand strong, 

1 Cf. Diod, xvii. 63,74 ; Curt. vii. 5. 23. 

2 Theopomp. fr. 249. 

3 Perhaps even more, if the fifteen hundred horse left with 
Antipater be reckoned into the calculation. 

4 Arr. iii. 11. 

6 Also at the crossing of the Hydaspes (Arr. v. 13). 

6 Plut. Eum,. 16 ff. For the grounds of the certain identifica- 
tion of the Argyraspids and Hypaspists, see " Army of Alexander," 
in Journ. of Philology, xvii. No. 33, p. 14. 

7 Cf., e. g. t Arr. iii. 11; v. 13. 



56 PHILIP 

a third of the whole. This force took the right of all 
the infantry at Arbela. 

As Philip had extended the honourable title of 
" King's Followers " to all his native cavalry, so he 
took the corresponding term ne^eratpot, and applied 
it to all the Macedonian infantry, whether of his 
clan or no : thus distinguishing the new nation from 
the Greeks, as the clan had once distinguished itself 
from the feudatories. 1 

1 This is the view to which I am compelled, on reconsideration 
of the passages in which the term 7re£eTaipoi (already in dispute 
in the days of Ulpian) occurs. When I wrote the article on 
Alexander's army, referred to above, I was inclined to regard it as 
equivalent only to the one ra|is of Coenus (on the strength of 
Arr. ii. 23). In some sense a distinction is implied in the term, 
or the mutineers at Opis would not have coupled it with the ayrj/xa 
and apyvpao-n-iScs (Arr. vii. 11). But I now believe that Demos- 
thenes is approximately accurate when he uses the term to express 
all the constituents of Philip's Phalanx that were not £evoi 
(Olyntli. ii. 17). Such a distinction would be sufficient to account 
for the phrase oi re. ot KaXovfxevoi, used by Arrian four times out 
of seven. One of Ulpian's explanations is that the 7r. were the 
pick of the infantry ; but care must be taken not to include in 
the term the Hypaspistae, if Arrian is to be credited with any 
precision of nomenclature at all. Droysen and Grote go wrong 
on this point. 

I conceive, therefore, that each of Alexander's great regiments 
of foot (e. g. the six enumerated at Arbela, Arr. iii. 11) was 
made up of two battalions — one of most honour, containing only 
Macedonian nz&Taipoi, one of less honour, made up of allies and 
mercenaries. The second composed the Sevripa <f>dX.ay£ at Arbela 
— the line of reserve designed to face about and meet an 
attack — and also probably formed the rear of the Si7rA^ <f)d\ay£ 
before Granicus (Arr. i. 13). Whenever Alexander, therefore, 
takes oi 7rc^€ratpot oi KaA.oiyi.evoi on special expeditions, he is 
picking the first battalions of his regiments. Not infrequently 
these regiments are credited with two commanders by Arrian 
(e, g. iv. 22, rrjv [to.£lv~\ HoXvanrip^ovTO's kol 'Att<x\ov ; iv. 24, ttjv 



REWARDS AND DISTINCTIONS 57 

Here, then, is a system of honourable nomenclature 
— (3olctl\lkol, /3acn\iKal iAcu, ayr^uara, ercupoi, 7re£e- 
TcupoL — designed to give the army pride in itself, and 
to attach it to the person of the king. We cannot 
doubt that promotion into the distinguished corps 
was made possible for all Macedonians who should 
win the king's favour ; it could even be granted to 
aliens. Further, there was, of course, a scale of 
military honour for individuals ; this man takes the 
lead of his file and faces the foe in the front rank ; 
that one brings up the rear, and is important as a 
pivot. One private receives double pay; another 
ten staters ; * and so forth, up to the culminating 
distinction of Guard of the Person, which in Alex- 
ander's time was enjoyed by four natives of Pella, 
one of Orestis, and two of Eordaea. 2 

If military service is to be accepted readily as the 
main reason and object of existence, the soldier must 
be caught young. Philip, therefore, enacted that all 

KotVou Te «ai AttclA.ou tol^lv ; v. 12, Tt]v K.Xutov re kol KoiVou), as 
are also the cavalry [Tnrap^tai (e. g. v. 12, ttjv IlepSiKKou re kcu 
Arj/xrjrpLov)- Unfortunately Arrian is not exact in his use of the 
names of corps, especially Ta£is; but still some value may be 
attached to these twin commands, in view of the other evidence 
for the dual nature of the regiments. If Diodorus' figures 
(xvii. 17) are accurate, the irzt,iTaipoi in Alexander's force, when 
he crossed to Asia, numbered 9000; each first battalion, therefore, 
at Arbela would be 1500 strong. The allies and mercenaries 
numbered 12000, and the second battalions may therefore have 
been 2000 strong, but more probably 1500 also, 3000 men being 
reserved to counterbalance the 3000 Hypaspistae. 

1 Arr. vii. 23. 

2 Id. vi. 28. The home of one — Peucestas, added in 324 — is 
unknown. 



58 PHILIP 

sons of the upper classes of his subjects should be 
sent to the court to serve as Pages of the Body, in 
peace to be Equerries or Gentlemen of the Chamber, 
in war to follow the campaign as an inner Guard, 
and always to study those military duties which they 
would have to perform presently as officers of the 
Cavalry or the Line. 1 If he made any special pro- 
vision for the boys of the lower classes, we do not 
know it ; but we do know that the child born or bred 
in barracks grows up in the military tradition, and 
there must always be many such children where 
there is a standing army. It is noteworthy that 
Alexander, when he sent the time-expired veterans 
home in 324, retained all their children born in 
Asia. 2 

By such means did Philip hope to make the pride 
of service in a great army the ruling passion of his 
people ; and he must have foreseen that, if he was 
successful, the small race divisions among his sub- 
jects would fade little by little into a common 
distinction of all from the rest of the world. In 
the event the Macedonians became one people, and 
their common military pride and exclusiveness barred 
even Alexander's way when he dreamed of a wider 
union. He could abolish the territorial regiments 
without trouble at Susa in 330, as having become 
already superfluous divisions, but his first attempts 

1 Such an institution at a court half Greek, half barbarian, 
gave, of course, many occasions to scandal; but Arrian (iv. 13) 
and Curtius (viii. 6) agree as to the object which Philip had in 
view when he instituted it. 
2 Arr. vii. 12. 



THE CORPS D'ARM^E 59 

to expand the great Macedonian union provoked 
open mutiny. 

The ancient treatise on Tactics, which has come 
down to our times in two recensions, to which the 
names of Arrian and Aelian have been attached, 
furnishes elaborate detail of the Macedonian military 
organization ; but so seldom do either the names or 
strength of the corps agree with our authorities for 
Alexander's army, 1 that we must suppose them to be 
of later times. Furthermore, the system described in 
that treatise, of units ascending in arithmetical pro- 
gression from the file of 16 to the full brigade of 
16,384, 2 belongs to a time when the territorial 
battalion had ceased to be the unit. It is more 
probable that Philip organized his new army by 
regiments than by brigades ; and that Alexander first 
began to work towards the latter system at Susa 
in 330. 

Contemporary authority makes it clear that Philip's 
army was a standing force of men with arms always 
in their hands, 3 ready to march in summer or winter 
alike ; 4 and that it was organized as a corps d'armee, 
the phalanx of Macedonian foot having a regular 
complement of all arms, light troops, cavalry, and 
archers, attached to it, and both siege and field 
artillery. 5 It was in the strictest sense a professional 

1 See article on " Army of Alexander," p. 20, clt. supra. The 
coincidence of names is about fifty-five per cent., that of numbers 
not above thirty per cent. 

2 Tad. 10. 8 Dem. Be Cor. 235. 

4 Id. Phil. iii. 48 ff. 

5 Cf. Diod. xvi. 8 and 74 ; Arr. i. 6. 



60 PHILIP 

army, elaborately trained to march under heavy arms 
and baggage, 1 highly paid and rewarded, and as 
capable of fortifying a camp or mining a wall as 
of executing every movement in the face of the 
enemy. 

Relying on its training and discipline, Philip 
could introduce it to new fighting methods. He 
taught his Cavalry_to charge, not in line, but in 
wedge-shaped formations, 2 a device destined to be 
resorted to by his son at Arbela. For the In- 
fantry, he perfected the famous phalanx. Though 
in conception this phalanx was not different from 
the existing Greek fighting array, Philip so far 
developed and systematized it that he came to be 
regarded as its inventor. His new ideas seem to 
have been two : First to render bodies of pikemen 
more mobile and pliable than the Theban or Spartan. 
So far as we can judge, the idea of the Greek 
formations had been to range pikemen together in 
one compact mass, and win by sheer weight of 
man pushing on man, breast to back and shoulder to 
shoulder. It was hardly possible in such formation 
for the man-at-arms to make play with his pike, and 
uneven ground or any accident caused serious con- 
fusion. With highly disciplined soldiers like the 
Spartan, able to re-form quickly, and knowing how to 
use their weight, a considerable advantage might be 
gained; but, nevertheless, as was proved in 394 at 
Coronea, training in this formation could not over- 
come sheer weight sturdily applied. Epaminondas saw 
1 Fide supra, p. 45. a Tact. 16. 



NEW IDEAS 61 

that the traditional deep formation 1 of the Boeotians, 
if practised by trained and resolute men on good 
ground, must break a thin line opposed to it; but 
only able to find enough trained men to strengthen 
one wing, he conceived the idea of attacking with 
one part of his line only, and trusting to the moral 
effect upon all the foe of the breaking of their 
formation at an important point. The Leuctrian 
" Wedge " marked the extreme that could be attained 
in the use of sheer weight. It was obvious, however, 
that, if opposed to a mobile and ready foe, its clumsy 
mass would be in grave peril, the weak part of the 
line might be cut off, and a very little movement 
over uneven ground would cause disorder. Philip, 
therefore, in search of a new idea, did not proceed on 
Theban lines, but reverting to shallow formations of 
eight, ten, or perhaps sixteen deep at the most, 
drilled his pikemen to stand in open order, in which 
they could ply their pikes easily and move quickly. 
If we can trust the Tactica, there were usually three 
feet between_each man, both in rank and file interval, 
and in the closest order a foot and a half. Ample 
room therefore was left for individual and sectional 
movement, such as that implied in the opening of 
lanes in Alexander's array on the Balkans to allow 
passages for the Thracian waggons, or at Arbela to 
give the frightened horses yoked to Darius' scythed 
chariots a chance to bolt clear through the lines. All 
tacticians know that soldiers must be more thoroughly 

1 Cf. .their depth of twenty-five shields as early as 424, at 
Celium (Thuc. iv. 93). 



62 PHILIP 

drilled and of better temper to preserve their forma- 
tion and steadiness in open than in close order ; but 
Philip had secured those essential first requisites, 
and thus could form a fighting force able to charge 
over bad ground and engage formations much deeper 
than their own. 

His second idea was the " sarissa," or long pike, 
which would enable his phalanx to strike the first bloiv. 
To the efficient using of such a weapon, training and 
discipline were all essential. Macedonian armies of 
the third and second centuries plied a sarissa even 
twenty-four feet long, 1 and six points protected the 
front rank man. It is needless to credit Philip's 
pikeman with so monstrous a weapon as this ; it 
belongs to the days of decline when generals, deficient 
in tactical ability, had reverted to solid immobile 
formations as more within their power to handle. 2 
No allusion is made by any historian of Alexander's 
wars to so abnormal a weapon as the sarissa, which 
astonished Polybius and Livy. On the contrary, the 
mobility, which stands out as the most striking 
virtue of Alexander's phalanx, witnesses that its 
weapon was not unwieldy. His formations are never 

1 The coincidence of Polybius (xviii. 12) with. Polyaenus 
(ii. 29. 2) and the second recension of the Tactica (15) puts 
this beyond donbt. Cf. also Livy's remarks on its unwieldy 
length (xliv. 41). The first recension of the Tactica reads 7rdSas 
for m^ei?, reducing the length to fourteen or sixteen feet ; but 
either this is a manuscript error or correction, or it is a remi- 
niscence of the earlier sarissa. 

2 In the same way, heavy body armour was introduced in 
the Middle Ages, to compensate for degeneracy in drill and 
tactics. 



THE PHALANX 63 

(like those which the Romans met) at the mercy of 
uneven ground. They even crossed the Pinarus at 
Issus and re-formed in the face of the enemy. The 
Greek weapon may be assumed not to have exceeded 
the greatest length assigned by the author of the 
Tadica to a practicable pike, viz. twelve feet. 1 Let 
a foot or two more be allowed to the phalangite of 
Philip and Alexander, and we save the indubitable 
fact that a longer weapon than the Greek was intro- 
duced, and do not render the attack at Issus a 
practicable impossibility. 

This Phalanx, however, be it observed, did not prove 
instantly superior to the Greek infantry formations 
that it encountered ; and it is a frequent error, derived 
from the Romans, to attach to it a supreme import- 
ance in the Macedonian fighting line. Its inventor 
and his son used it to play a great but subordinate 
part ; secure of its discipline and steadiness, they 
could engage with it the whole front of a superior 
enemy, while the real attack was developed by the 
cavalry on the flanks. We have seen already the 
first outcome of these tactics against the Illyrians: 
they were to win Chaeronea, and be used with signal 
effect at Issus. The secret of the success of Philip 
and Alexander in their pitched battles lies in their 
handling of the magnificent horse, Macedonian and 
allied, and, in lesser affairs, of the lighter Guards 2 

1 12. 

2 The Guards (t>7ra<T7rioTat) are often reckoned into the Phalanx, 
e.g. in Arrian's catalogue of the array at Arbela (iii. 11); but 
they are also distinguished clearly from the heavy phalangites whenever 



64 PHILIP 

and archers. In later days only, when there was 
no longer a general to handle them, did these corps 
sink in repute below the automatically moving 
Phalanx. 

The perfected military system must have been the 
work of many years. For a long time Philip's 
national army was supplemented largely by mer- 
cenaries, 1 and the use of such auxiliaries was not 
abandoned entirely even by his son. 2 But we know 
that Philip at his death left to Alexander forty 
thousand seasoned men, and a system established so 
firmly that Phocion was moved to warn the exultant 
Athenians that the belauded poniard of Pausanias 
had done no more than diminish the army of 
Chaeronea by just a single man. 3 

Four years passed while Philip organized, plotted, 
and planned, but made hardly a sign to the outer 
world. In that obscure interval not only an army 
of soldiers was created, but another army with golden 
weapons sent forth to serve within the walls of every 
city-state of Hellas. 4 Fraud before force, but force 
at the last — such was Philip's principle of empire. 
Once only he aggressed, and that, perhaps, in reply 
to a hostile move. Athens, who still included in her 

any occasion arises for distinction, e. cj. on Alexander's rapid march to 
the Official) gates (ii. 4). 

1 Cf. Diod. xvi. 8; Dem. Olyntli. ii. 17. 

2 There were 5000 in Alexander's Asian array (Diod. xvii. 17). 
Cf. the corps of apyoxoi KaXov/xevoi £evoi at Arbela (Arr. iii. 12). 

8 Pint. Phoc. 16. 

4 Demosthenes (Zte Cor. 19) implies that there were already paid 
agents of Philip at Athens in 356. 



YEARS OF WAITING 65 

League some of the ports round the Thermaic Gulf, 
had begun a year or two before this date to intrigue 
with cities and chieftains of Thrace. 1 Now, however, 
she was struggling with revolt elsewhere, and the 
allegiance of all her dependencies was shaken. At 
such a favourable moment secret overtures were 
made by certain citizens of Pydna and Potidaea. 
Philip accepted their conditions, the gates were 
opened, and both towns passed unresisting into his 
hands. He was not, however, ready either to use 
them or to fight for them, and with cool perfidy he 
handed them over, together with Anthemus, to the 
keeping of a local Greek confederation, which Olyn- 
thus was striving to increase at the expense of 
Athens. For he knew that the gift would be 
guarded gratefully, till in his own good time he might 
swallow that confederation and his gift at a gulp. 

For the rest, Philip lived in comparative peace, 
doing no more than egg on a Thracian neighbour, 
Kersobleptes, to loosen the grip of Athens on his 
coasts, 2 and harry the Illyrians by deputy. 3 Visit- 
ing the isle of Samothrace, to be initiated into the 
mysteries of the Cabiri, he met another royal novice, 
Olympias, daughter of a dead Epirote king and 
reputed of the Greek stem of Aeacus. 4 Her fierce 

1 Neopolis, C. I. A. ii. 66 ; Ketriporis and Lykkeios, ii. 66 b. 

2 But cf. Diod. xvi. 22. Cf. also Isocr. Be Pace, 22 (spoken in 
355) with Dem. in Arid. 1S3. 

3 Pint. Alex. 3. 

4 Id. Alex. 3. Cf. Paus. i. 9. 8. The Alexander Romance 
alludes to a former marriage and an earlier offspring (Ps. Callisth. 
i. 13), but there is no corroborative evidence. 

5 



66 PHILIP 

fantastic nature appealed to the Macedonian in the 
common excitement of the orgies, and as soon as 
might be he wedded the wild woman. Men believed 
that portents marked her bridal night, and visions and 
strange dreams the early months of her pregnancy ; 
and on a stormy night of October, 356, while the 
Ephesian fane of the Goddess of Asia was aflame, 
she bore Philip a son. 

In the spring of 353 the king was ready at last with 
soldiers and plans. He came out to war with a double 
purpose — to free his new-made nation from all frontier 
danger once and for all, and to increase to a sufficient 
degree its internal strength and wealth. He had 
chastised already the Illyrians and Paeonians, and 
allied himself by marriage with Epirus. Thracian 
chieftains, whom he had courted hitherto to keep 
them indifferent to the seductions of Athens, 1 must 
be crushed now to secure the northern and eastern 
marches. The Greek cities on his southern coasts 
from Olympus to the Chersonese were a stand- 
ing peril; while Thessaly contained the menacing 
Pheraean power, and withal the finest cavalry in 
Europe next to his own. 2 

He seems to have tried his strength first on certain 



1 Cf. Diod. xvi. 34, with Dem. in Arid. 183. 

2 Cf. Justin, vii. 6. " Hinc Thessaliam non praedae cupiditate, 
sed quod exercitui suo robur Thessalorum equitum adjungere 
gestiebat, nihil minus quam bellum metuentem improvisus ex- 
pugnat ; unumque corpus equitum pedestriumque copiarum invicti 
exercitus fecit." 



SIEGE OF METHONE 67 

of the Greek cities ; * but his Thracian allies took 
fright and called in Chares the Athenian. Philip 
eluded his fleet, and came back west to Methone, 
the one port of importance which Athens held still on 
the inner Macedonian sea. The imperial Republic 
was appealed to, but sent no help ; Philip pressed the 
siege, and when his men had scaled the wall, took 
away their ladders and so forced them into the town. 2 
The citizens — men, women, and children — were sent 
forth in the clothes they wore to find another home, 
and their city was razed to the ground ; it had cost 
Philip an eye. 3 

It marks an era in Philip's life, this siege of a 
little port in Pieria, for it meant war open and 
declared with Athens. Amphipolis, indeed, had not 
been forgotten by the jealous Republic, but Philip 
could allege that for long it had not been an Athenian 
dependency de facto, and he made feint of debating 
still the question of exchange. Pydna and Poticlaea 
had invited him of their own motion, and, though 
he took them, he did not keep them in his hands. 
Ancient states often hovered long between peace and 
war, inflicting and receiving minor injuries, tantamount 

1 Cf. Olynth. iii. 4. Abdera and Maronea, at any rate. Cf. 
Dem. in Arid. I.e. with Polyaen., iv. 2, 22. 

2 Polyaen. iv. 2, 15. 

3 Callisthenes (ap. Stob. vii. § 65) says the eye was shot out by 
one Aster, as Philip was marching to the siege of Olynthus ; but 
Callisthenes seems to have confnsed the siege of Methone with 
the later operations against Chalcidiee. Cf. Diod. xvi. 34 ; Strabo, 
p. 33 «; Justin, vii. 6; Pliny, Nat. Hist. vii. 37 ; Plut Parallel. 
ch. viii. ; and Suidas, s.v. MSwvv- The latter says that Aster was 
a Methonaean. 



68 PHILIP 

to casus belli, but sent no heralds. Philip knew well 
this practice and how to use it ; l but Methone made 
nothing possible but open war ; and the Athenians 
always looked back to that siege as a point of de- 
parture in the Macedonian's deliberate scheme to 
humble their country. 

Nevertheless, in 353, Philip had no wish to humble 
Athens, except on his own coasts. Throughout life 
his rude nature hankered after the approval of the 
city which he called the " Theatre of Glory," 2 and 
always he was more than half ashamed to use his 
brute broadsword against her wit. Athenians alone 
among his captives he freed unransomed, when the 
chance of war threw them into his hands ; their land 
alone in Greece he neither entered himself nor allowed 
a single soldier to violate, even after Chaeronea. 
Had Athens not clung to her imperial relations with 
the coasts of Macedonia and Thrace, her orbit would 
never have disturbed that of Philip. It was the 
western ports which first embroiled the two ; it was 
Halonnesus and the Chersonese which strained their 
newly made Peace ; it was Athenian support of the 
cities on the sea of Marmora, which indirectly brought 
Philip down at last to Chaeronea. Neither his last 
acts nor his first can be justified by international 
right, as commonly understood ; the attempt to acquit 
him by the laws of individual morality would be as 
futile as absurd. Let those that are without sin 
arraign by which code they will this architect of a 
nation. 

1 Cf. Dera. THl. iv. 61. 2 Plut. AjwpJdh. Phil 11. 



THESSALY g9 

It was late in that summer ere Philip could put 
hand to his dearest project. The great knightly house 
of Larissa had invited him to interfere in their quarrel 
with the rival house of Pherae. 1 An intriguer could 
wish no fairer field than Thessaly. One in name, 
it was divided from end to end by the fatal feuds 
of families. The great houses of Larissa, Pherae, 
Crannon, Pharsalus, and Pelinna, idle and luxurious 
feudal Barons with no overlord, rode and fought and 
oppressed their serfs. They knew no voluntary 
union ; but sometimes one house would so far increase 
its power as to force submission or unequal alliance 
on others, as the Aleuadae of Larissa had done in 
time past, and to claim for its chief the title of tag us 
of all Thessaly. More than twenty years before the 
Larissan family sent their invitation to Macedonia, 
a great Baron, one Jason, had arisen in Pherae — a 
man of a genius unscrupulous and masterful as that 
of Philip himself. This man, noting the success of 
professional armies in Asia, used the revenues of his 
cornlancls and his port of Pagasae to buy soldiers of 
fortune ; and ere he died, in the year after Leuctra, 
lord of all the six thousand Thessalian knights, 2 

1 Both Diodorus (xvi. 14) and Justin (vii. 6) possibly imply 
that Philip made an expedition to help these Aleuadae of Larissa 
earlier than 353. Demosthenes, however, reckons (Phil. iii. 25) 
that up to 341 Philip had been marching about Greek soil for less 
than thirteen years. I prefer to rate this explicit contemporary 
statement above the very vague indications of the chroniclers ; 
but it is quite possible that the invitation reached Philip earlier 
than 353, but was put aside till it could conveniently be com- 
plied with. 

2 See for Thessaly under Jason, the speech of Polydamas of 
Pharsalus at Sparta in 374. Xen. Hell. vi. 1. 



70 PHILIP 

he could marshal with his mercenaries and allies the 
most formidable force in Greece. But by 353 he and 
his sons had met tyrants' deaths. A shadow of their 
power alone survived at Pherae ; and the Aleuadae 
of Larissa had fair hope of tasting full vengeance 
for the wrongs of twenty years, when Philip marched 
south from Methone to gain a footing in Thessaly. 

He appears to have underrated his foes, or over- 
rated his friends. The Pheraean Baron called up 
seven thousand mercenaries from the spoilers of Delphi, 
and against these Philip could make no head. A second 
check disheartened his men, and with much ado he 
drew them back to Macedonia. During the winter 
he pressed the Thessalians to supply better support, 
and when he came south again in the spring of 352 
he was able to take the field with more than twenty 
thousand foot and three thousand horse. A host of 
knights and mercenaries, superior to his own, was 
awaiting him, and in the plain of Volo. Philip fought 
his first great battle on Greek soil. As champion 
of outraged Apollo against the impious Phocian 
hirelings, he exalted the superstitious confidence of 
his soldiers by wreathing their helmets as for a 
festival. They charged with the fury of fanaticism : 
the Phocian mercenaries and their leader Onomar- 
chus, 1 stricken with panic, hardly awaited the onset 
of the phalanx ; and the Companion and Larissan 
cavalry bore down on the Pheraeans until all broke 
and fled together towards the sea. An Athenian fleet 
was standing in-shore, and those that had fled first 

1 Cf. Justin, viii. 2; and Paus. x. 2, 5. 



BATTLE OF PAGASAE 71 

stripped off their armour and waded out towards 
the ships, but ere Onomarchus was out of his 
depth he was killed by missiles. The victor crucified 
the body, and put to death three thousand of his 
prisoners, as sacrilegious men outside the pale of 
international right. 

The results of the Victory were grave indeed ! 
The Pheraean army had lost nearly half its numbers, 
and its best ally. The Baron surrendered his city 
without another blow, flying south of Thermopylae 
with the last of his mercenaries ; and his port of 
Pagasae fell. The power which Jason founded had 
received its death-blow, and it was for the Macedonian 
now to be tagus of Thessaly. 

Flushed with success, Philip conceived the idea of 
pushing his pious championship of Apollo even to 
Delphi. Perhaps already he craved for Hellenic 
recognition ; certainly he wished to secure Thessaly 
on the south by breaking up the main Phocian force 
and seizing the southern Gate. He was not, however, 
to pass Thermopylae yet. News came up that it was 
held by a strong force, not of Phocians, but Athen- 
ians. Chares had sent home word of Philip's project, 
and the Republic that had been dashed too severely 
by the disastrous result of the Social War to make 
any serious effort to stay the Macedonian, started 
at last from lethargy at the news that an army 
greater than any since that of Xerxes' was making 
for the pass. Philip had no idea of forcing his 
passage against serious_ opposition. So he turned 
back to Thessaly, and by the space of two years used 



72 PHILIP 

all his arts to make it his own. Nowhere, except 
at Pherae, whose last shadow of a tyrant he expelled 
in 351, did he cry Vae victis ! He would be, forsooth, 
no more than tagus, with harbour-clues to recoup 
expenses, and the good will of free Thessaly for 
reward. He won the land "by wiles rather than 
by arms," 1 fostering every weakening quarrel and 
supporting the masses against the Barons. To only 
one district, that of Magnesia and its port of 
Pagasae, did he lay imperial claim ; for there his gar- 
risons could command the harbour of Volo, match- 
less shelter for his own privateers, and dangerous 
inlet for those of his foes. Jason and his sons already 
had proved its value, and Philip's successors reckoned 
the fortress, which they built on its shore a mile from 
the modern town, to be one of the keys of Greece. It 
was largely this claim that so long delayed the settle- 
ment of Thessaly ; protest upon protest was made by 
the Thessalians, and we find Parmenio engaged still 
in 346 in reducing one of the towns on the gulf. 

The filaments of Philip's web stretched even to the 
long island of Euboea, whence Athenian influence 
could always threaten Thessaly. Gold and promises 
gathered a Macedonian party in Chalcis and Eretria, 
and fomented civil war. The opponents of Philip 
called upon Athens ; but when Phocion, her general, 
arrived in 349, it was to find that Philip's gold had 
debauched even the leader of his own allies. Deserted 
on the field of Tamynae, he saved himself and his 
army, and chastised his betrayer ; but the Athenians 
1 Polyaen. iv. 2. 19. 



PAEONIA AND THRACE 73 

never recovered again all their prestige in Euboea. 
Thenceforward tyrants ruled the cities in the interests 
of Philip, or at best of themselves, and Athens felt 
that she might be threatened at any moment from 
vantage points whose possessors could turn both 
Thermopylae and the passes of Cithaeron. 

For half a dozen years after Pagasae we are 
allowed no more than glimpses of Philip. His agents 
appear in Greek towns, 1 and his privateers in Greek 
waters ; but of himself, so soon as he has left Thes- 
saly, we hear only that he is on his own confines. 2 He 
had set himself to finish that task which was but half 
done when he marched into Thessaly, viz. the reduction 
once for all of the western half of the Balkan penin- 
sula. The northern Illyrians and Paeonians, and his 
own Epirote kinsman, Arybbas, still prof essed indejDend- 
ence. 3 The most part of the Greek coast towns, from 
the Hebrus to the Axius, had yet to acknowledge Mace- 
donian sway. Whenever the cloud lifts, we descry the 
restless king warring far inland, now stricken with 
sickness, now reported dead. At one moment he is 
besieging Heraeonteichos by the Hebrus, at another 
sweeping back through Geira to Stagira, Mecyberna 
and Torone. 4 This much, at least, is certain — that, 
the six years completed, Philip had only the east 
of the Balkan peninsula to conquer, and hardly a 

1 Dem. Phil. i. 17, 41 ; Ohjnth. ii. 18 ; Be Pace, 6; F. L. 10. 

2 PHI. i. 11. 

8 Ohjnth. i. 13. Cf. Plut. Alex. 2; C. I. A. ii. 115, Avhich 
proves that Arybbas, when beaten, sought refuge at Athens. 
4 Ohjnth. iii. 5 ; Diod. xvi. 52 ; Ael. V. H. xii. 54. 



74 PHILIP 

Thracian port west of Hebrus is reckoned thereafter 
independent of him. It was estimated that ere he 
came down to Olynthus in 349, he had suppressed 
the freedom of thirty-two Hellenic cities of Thrace ; 1 
and a later age interpreted as portents to Hellas 
the comets and earthquakes which marked the 
year 350. 2 

Philip, who had threatened Olynthus already three 
years before and driven her to compound her quarrel 
with Athens, 3 drew at last towards her walls in the 
spring of 349. The capital of Chalcidice, although not 
comparable to the greatest maritime cities of Iorfta, 
Greece, or Sicily, could offer a resistance more serious 
and a prize more valuable than any port of Thracaf 
except Byzantium. She had risen to her dignity on 
the ruins of the first maritime empire of Athens, 
by forcing into an unwilling federation most of 
the towns on the trident peninsula, 4 and opposing 
herself consistently to the enfeebled leaders of the 
southern Hellenes. Sparta, indeed, at the zenith of 
her own power, had read her one rude lesson ; but 
relying first on the Thracian tribes, and latterly on 
the Macedonian king himself, 5 Olynthus had persisted 
in asserting her headship ; and the fitful efforts of 
Athenian admirals to re-establish their dominion in 
Thrace had gone far to unite her confederacy with her 

1 Callisth. fr. 42 ; Suid. s. v. Kapavo?. 

2 Pliny, JV. H. ii. 27. 

8 C. I. A. ii. 105. Cf. Libanius, arg. to Olynthiac orations. 
4 See Xen. Hell. v. 211 ff, for a contemporary statement of the 
nature of her " federation." 
6 Dem. in Aristocr. 107. 



CHALCIDICE AND OLYNTHUS 75 

in common resistance. To panhellenic sympathy, 
therefore, Olynthus had established no claim, nor 
indeed did she obtain it either before or after her 
fall. Only it chanced, as we shall see, that her in- 
terests were made the cry of a certain Athenian party, 
and that its leading spokesman saw fit to suppress 
her early record, to exaggerate both what she was 
and what she might have been, and to paint in vivid 
colours the dolorous impression caused by her cata- 
strophe — a picture which the subsequent attitude of 
the ^^enians towards the oppressor of Olynthus, and 
offlie Peloponnesians towards Olynthian captives (to 
take the orator's own story) signally fails to support. 
^f*ln the trident Philip played his usual ruthless 
game. He broke into the confederate cities one by 
one, but, assuring Olynthus that he was not at 
war with herself, 1 contrived to convince her that he, 
her old ally, would hand over once more to her 
keeping the fractious members of her confederacy, 
chastened and subject as Potidaea seven years before. 
His spears moved stage by stage nearer the capital. 
The Olynthians suspected nothing, or lulled their 
suspicions ; when lo ! a Macedonian herald appeared 
at their gates, and throwing it in their teeth that 
they were sheltering two of his master's half-brothers, 
destined Ions; aero to death at their kinsman's 
accession, 2 proclaimed his brutal ultimatum, that 
Macedonia was not wide enough for Olynthus and 
for Philip. 3 It was a bolt from the blue. No room 

1 See Phil. iii. 11. 
2 Justin, viii. 3. 3 Dera. Phil. I.e. 



76 PHILIP 

was opened for grace, and the citizens could but 
shut their gates and look round the Hellenic world 
for help. One state only was there, independent of 
Persia and already embroiled with Philip, which pos- 
sessed any considerable fleet. That state was Athens, 
and for the second time to Athens must Olynthus go. 
The Olynthian envoys were received in the summer 
by the Athenian people, without, it seems, great 
enthusiasm — but they were heard. In the exhausted 
Republic an imperial policy had not been popular 
since the Social War, and now that there was trouble 
in Euboea, a majority of the citizens were disposed 
to accept the statements of Philip's agents that 
the Macedonian king's ambition was not directed 
against the Athenian state, which indeed, they 
protested, he held in high esteem. The loss of the 
Thracian mines however rankled in the soul of 
Demos, who had come to love free shows and to 
hate taxation as heartily as a Roman state-pensioner ; 
and withal individual Athenians of position, like 
Roman nobles, foresaw in foreign commands very 
pretty opportunities for loot and blackmail. There- 
fore, rather perhaps because they did not love Olyn- 
thus than because they did, the Athenians acceded 
to the envoys' prayer so far as to despatch a half- 
piratical expedition of two thousand hired soldiers 
in thirty ships of war under their notorious con- 
dotiierc, Chares. How this force conducted itself 
we may infer from Demosthenes' complaints in the 
second Olynthiac oration, 1 and also from the fact 
1 § 28; cf. Phil i. 45. 



ATHENS AND OLYNTHUS 77 

that it appears to have done no sort of harm to 
Philip. Chares was back in Athens by October; 
and already, in response to a second appeal from 
Olynthus, the still more notorious pirate Charidemus l 
had taken eighteen Athenian ships of war, four 
thousand light troops, and a small force of cavalry, 
drafted from the Euboean army of Phocion, 2 and 
gone off to Chalcidice ; where he raided the lands of 
the Greek towns in Pallene and Bottiaea to the no 
small satisfaction of himself and his men, but neither 
to the serious hurt of Philip nor to the conspicuous 
advantage of Olynthus. The latter, in fact, sent 
presently to complain of these hireling hordes, but 
only obtained early in 348 3 the loan of Chares again, 
followed this time by a citizen force of two thou- 
sand spears and three hundred horse, together with 
seventeen ships of war. But we are not led to 
suppose that any good result followed ; Chares 
returned probably ere the Olympic Truce was 
proclaimed, 4 Philip not having been driven back 
a single foot. 

Already the lesser Chalcidic cities were under the 
Macedonian's heel, and the Olynthian forces, after 
two hard-fought but unsuccessful engagements, 5 were 

1 See Dem. in Aristocratem, passim ; and Theopompus, fr. 155. 

2 Dem. in Mid. p. 197. 

3 Such an interval before the third expedition is in itself 
probable, and not at all inconsistent with the words of Philochorus 
as quoted by Dionysius {ad Amm. 9). Holm (Gr. Gesch. iii. 
ch. 17, p. 280) anticipates me in this view. 

4 Aesch. F. L. 12. 

6 Cf. Theopomp. fr. 155, for their partial success. 



78 PHILIP 

penned within their walls. Ancient sieges were slow 
and painful if there was no traitor to open a 
gate, and the besieged had access to the sea ; and 
Olynthus might have kept Philip without its walls 
for long enough, had he depended on force alone. 
The Macedonian, however, had his agents within the 
gates as well as his pikes outside, and was working to 
corrupt some leader of the aristocratic faction, which, 
it seems, inspired the defence. 1 During the winter 
the stalwart Apollonides came to be disgraced, and 
traitors, Lasthenes and Euthycrates, 2 to be put in his 
room, and from them the surrender was bought at 
last in the early spring of 347. The aristocratic 
knights were betrayed ; the commons ceased to 
resist ; and more by fraud at the last than force 
Philip found himself in Olynthus. He razed the 
city to the ground, sold its citizens for slaves, after 
the brutal Macedonian manner, which even his 
hellenized son used, executed his two half-brothers, 
and went off to Dium to give thanks at the great 
festival of Macedonian Zeus 3 for the crowning mercy 
of a united Macedonia. 

"Winter had set in when a herald appeared at the 
court of Pella, announcing that an embassy was on its 
way from Athens with overtures of peace. Philip had 
still to realize two schemes in his earliest programme 
of ambition. The eastern half of the Balkan penin- 
sula remained to be subdued ; and his supremacy 

1 Phil. iii. 56 ff. 2 Dem. Chers. 40. 

8 Diod. xvi. 55. 



STRENGTH OF ATHENS 79 

must be established south of Thermopylae. He was 
meditating on the immediate prosecution of the first 
of these schemes, with its implied assault on Athenian 
interests in the Thracian Chersonese, 1 and on an 
aggressive movement in Euboea, designed, doubtless, 
to check the Attic privateers ; 2 but the appearance of 
the Athenian herald induced him to postpone all this 
in favour of the second scheme. It was a singular 
opportunity. Athens, so devoutly desiring peace, 
might well let him pass Thermopylae without a 
battle ; and for the rest he would answer himself with 
his diplomacy and his spears. 

The Macedonian had been looming large in the 
Athenian sky these seven years past. Athens also, 
beyond question, had occupied no small place in the 
thoughts of the Macedonian. But it is a grave 
error in historical perspective to represent Philip as 
engaged consciously during all his reign in a great 
duel with Demosthenes. A right understanding 
either of that orator's position in Athens, or of the 
part played at this epoch by the Republic herself in 
the political arena of eastern Europe, will supply salu- 
tary correction. For fifty years past Athens had been 
hardly superior in naval strength to Rhodes, and for 
half that time distinctly inferior in military power to 
Thebes ; and it is clear that Philip rated her capacity 
for offence hardly higher than that of Olynthus or 
Byzantium. 

As a military power, Athens, never the equal even 

1 Aesch. F. L. 82. 2 Dem. F. L. 315. 



80 PHILIP 

of such little city-states as Sparta and Thebes, was 
worth consideration now only in so far as she could 
hire soldiers of fortune. For, like Venice in the 
Middle Ages, she possessed but an insignificant 
peasant class, the most part of her citizens being 
townsmen of one town, engaged hi commerce or sea- 
going trade. The size of her army, therefore, would 
depend directly on the measure of her revenues ; and 
these had sunk by 346 to a figure not more than 
commensurate with her internal needs. Since the 
Social War, the tribute paid annually to her by 
other states had fallen to less than fifty talents ; and 
even that insignificant sum could not always be 
realized. Internally, she seems to have been still 
very wealthy; but since her citizens seldom or 
never submitted to direct taxation, and had come, 
with the spread of free thought and philosophic 
scepticism, to be but lukewarm in voluntary bounty, 
the State was scarcely tapping private capital at all. 
Accordingly, we find that the forces which from time 
to time Athens sends to Thrace or to Euboea are 
hardly worthy of mention beside Philip's effective 
armies, even had the Athenian bands been (as, indeed, 
they were not !) properly paid and equipped, and 
of assured loyalty to their mistress. 

On the sea, Athens was hardly more formidable 
than on land. For although she had still a larger 
fleet than any single state in the Aegean, and 
presently, under careful administration, brought the 
tale of her ships up to three hundred (as the marble 
navy records still bear witness), it is manifest that 



ATHENIAN ARMY AND FLEET 81 

she could neither put in commission any large 
number of vessels at one time, nor keep such as she 
did commission long on the sea. Men and money 
were wanting to her fleet as to her army ; and the 
requisite ship-furniture was not in her arsenals. 
There is no evidence that she ever had more than 
fifty ships on active service after the Social War. 
And, moreover, it must be pointed out that, although 
it might be irksome to Philip not to have the com- 
mand of the Aegean, that disability was not more fatal 
to him than it proved two centuries later to Rome. 
His was a land power resting on a continental basis, 
and, in the main, independent of sea-going trade ; 
and even had Athens not had rivals on her own 
element, such as Rhodes, Chios, Byzantium, and 
Syracuse, the geographical position of Philip's realm 
would have placed him beyond the reach of anything 
but irritation from her admirals. 

"Weak as Athens was herself in offensive force, she 
stood also practically alone. After the Social War 
she never resumed an imperial position, nor was able 
to count on the men or money of others. Her writ 
ran only Avhere her squatters had been planted, 
in Lemnos, Imbros, Scyros, Samos, and the Thracian 
Chersonese. On the cities of Thrace, and even on 
Euboea (as the demands made by Callias in 342 
suffice to prove), her hold was very weak, and only if 
in a moment of common fear she came to be added 
to some independent power, equal or superior to 
herself, would she cease to be negligeable. That 
moment came in 338 ; but even then she could not 



82 PHILIP 

outlast a single pitched battle, and fifteen years 
later, after the Lamian War had flickered out, 
Athens was forced to confess that she had not a 
single army to put in the field. 

As it had been given to Thucydides to exalt a 
series of raids into a great national war, so the 
transcendent oratory of Demosthenes has led historians 
to invest his opposition to Philip with an importance 
of which assuredly Philip was not aware. But since 
Athens, through her letters and her art, takes a place 
in universal history far above that due to her politics 
or her arms, the historian to-day is bound to esteem 
her by the former and not the latter standard. 
She may be a weakling compared to Thebes, and a 
pigmy beside Persia, but she has affected our world 
so much more than either, that small events in her 
history possess an interest far greater than the 
great events of theirs. To ignore her, or even to 
relegate her to lesser importance in relation to 
Philip, is to forget that Philip himself, little as he 
regarded her fleets or her armies, bowed himself 
none the less to her culture as he bowed to the 
arms of no other state. Consistently he modified 
his policy and excused his actions, for fear of forfeit- 
ing irretrievably her good will ; and he looked to a 
recognition by her as more to be desired and more 
pregnant of advantage than twice a victory of 
Chaeronea. 

Therefore, every relation which Philip has with 
Athens is worthy of more than ordinary note in his 
biography, and it is no paradox to say that the 



ATHENIAN PARTIES 83 

chance that we know so much of those relations, 
and so little of his intercourse with the Great King 
at Susa, and the princes of the Balkans and Albania 
with whom he was intriguing or warring all his 
life, implies no iniquity of fate. Certainly there is 
no more notable moment in his career, historically 
regarded, than this at which he became for the first 
time the theme of a supreme Athenian orator. He 
had been mentioned, indeed, as early as 355 by 
Isocrates, who, in a speech recommending peace with 
the confederate rebels of the Social War, assured the 
Athenians that the Macedonian king would not oppose 
their claim to Amphipolis ; 1 and, in the same year, he 
was alluded to first by the great Demosthenes. 2 But 
it is not till after the battle of Pagasae that 
Philip inspired a whole oration. 

It had been the policy of Athens for some years 
past not to intervene in foreign affairs. The minis- 
terial majority, led by a few able men like Eubulus 
and Phocion, found the ground of their faith in the 
lesson of the Social War, in a depleted treasury, and 
in a just estimate of the present capacity of the over- 
politicized Athenian people ; for practical support 
they relied on an idle populace and on a cultured 
landed class desirous only to possess its soul on its 
Attic estates. Opposed to these responsible statesmen 
was a fervid minority all for empire and for war, 
certain members of it being imbued with a genuine 
desire to arrest the slow decay of the state, more 
descrying in Opposition the road to political fame. 
1 Be Pace, 22. 2 Lept. 61. 



84 PHILIP 

Partly of one class and partly of the other was 
Demosthenes, now just thirty years of age, crying in 
season and out of season against the smug ministerial 
majority. 1 

In this year, 352, the foreign potentate most con- 
cerned with the traditional area of Athenian empire 
was Philip, and upon him accordingly the attention 
of the Opposition is concentrated. Therefore we are 
the richer for a series of speeches of surpassing merit 
as oratory, but neither convincing nor convinced. 
They were not productive, perhaps were not intended 
to be productive, of any result beyond that of bring- 
ing their author to the front of the political stage. 
There is the First Philippic, which impugns the slack 
military methods of the Ministry, and makes Philip's 
restless aggression occasion to call for a signal re- 
versal of the ministerial peace policy. There is the 
speech for the Freedom of the Khodians, spoken in 
351, in which the orator lashes out, in passing, 2 at 
the official apathy about Philip's movements. There 
are the three Olynthiac orations, all delivered pro- 
bably late in 349 (one perhaps early in 348) in the 
debates excited by the successive appeals of the 
Olynthians. This group of great orations is not to 
be taken too seriously. The orator knew very well 
that it was not among the practical possibilities of 
politics that the Olynthian quarrel should be taken 
up very strenuously, or the Sacred Fund, set apart 
for the providing of free shows, be voted for the war. 

1 Cf. De Pace, 6 ; Deinarch. in Bern. pp. 12, 102, 99 ; Plut. Bern. 

2 § 2. 



DEMOSTHENES 85 

Secure, therefore, in irresponsibility, he can flout the 
majority, and extol or depreciate Philip's power and 
character, according as the Ministry finds its excuse 
for inaction in contempt or fear of the foe. The 
three speeches have been placed in this sequence or 
in that, according as the necessities of Olynthus are 
pressed or ignored, as Philip bulks small or large, 
and as the recommendation of a financial expedient is 
tentative or precise. 1 But it is to be remarked that 
since the references in these orations to the Olyn- 
thian war are in the last degree meagre and vague, 
and those to Philip merely general, the Olynthiacs 
would possess for the historian only an academic 
interest, even did not the position of the speaker and 
the character of the action taken by the Ministry 
make it impossible to invest them with any respon- 
sibility for the Athenian expeditions. 2 

No sooner was Demosthenes on the road to recog- 
nition and office, than he rounded towards the policy 
of the majority, and was found among the ten 
envoys at Pella in the winter of 347. He was 
destined presently to revert to his former policy, 
thanks to circumstances beyond his own control, and 
to intensify it into that persistent Philippic Crusade 
which we associate with his name. In brief, it was 
the rare fortune of Demosthenes to be forced into 
consistency with himself ; yet, nevertheless, there 
is no need to call him trimmer or opportunist. 
The young party-politician always must begin 

1 On such principles, II., I., III., must be the order. 
3 Cf., per contra, Ulpian, ad Bern. Olynth. L 



86 PHILIP 

uncertainly ; and if it be borne in mind that Demos- 
thenes was not, as some have loved to represent him, 
a voice crying in the wilderness, but essentially and 
always a man of party, spokesman of one strong 
faction against another, we shall not degrade him 
to a political rogue, 1 any more than exalt him as 
political saint. His conduct of the embassies should 
make that last exaggeration impossible, although the 
conspicuous correspondence of his later action with 
the magnificent principles, that he enunciated so 
magnificently, set him as high as a politician has 
ever stood in a democratic state. 

The reason of the herald's coming to Pella was on 
this wise. The Athenian people, seeing itself as far 
as ever from recovering the mines, 2 had left Olynthus 
to its fate a full year before ; and now the destruction 
of its Chalcidic ally released it from its oaths of 
alliance and all lingering doubts. Already, in 349, 
Philip had been reported to desire peace, and latterly 
one Ctesiphon had brought a verbal message from 
him to the Athenians that he warred unwillingly 
against their city. 3 A motion even had been made 
in the Assembly at the end of 348, to invite Philip 
to make first move. Philip did not respond. It was 
hardly his part to come a-courting now ! Therefore, 

1 "Malum virum accepimus " (Quintilian, xii. I. 14). 

2 That this was the sole object which aroused any public 
interest at Athens in the Olynthian war, is proved abundantly by 
all the authorities. The war with Philip is called consistently 
" for Amphipolis." Cf. especially, Libanius, arg. to Dem. F. L. 

8 Aesch. F. L. 13. 



NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE 87 

the first panic over, and their envoys recalled from 
the Greek states, the Athenian Ministry, hearing a 
renewal of Philip's expression of good will in the 
mouth of Aristodemus, an actor, put up one Pkilo- 
crates to move for a commission to negotiate peace. 
Ten members were proposed — the mover himself and 
Ctesiphon, and six elderly colleagues, together with 
the two free lances, Demosthenes and Aeschines, 1 
whose inclusion would muzzle the Opposition. This 
motion being agreed to, a herald was despatched, as 
we have seen ; and late in the autumn the Com- 
missioners crossed to Euboea, and journeyed overland 
up to Oreus, hi order, doubtless, to avoid the 
privateers in the Aegean and the Thebans on the 
mainland. At Oreus they proposed to await their 
herald's return ; but he not appearing, and the 
season being late, they took ship to the Bay of 
Pagasa,e, where Parmenio was beleaguering Halus, 
obtained his safe conduct, and so came in peace 
through his lines to Larissa, where at last the herald 
brought word that all was well. Philip was lying 
at Pella, and a few days later received them there 
with all honour. 

This first audience, which the architect of the new 
order gave to the last brilliant spirits of the old, is 
one of the very few events of Philip's life that we 
can invest with circumstance. Aeschines, giving three 
years later an account of his acts to an Athenian 
jury, has left us a suggestion of the scene — the king 

1 These two were not on distinct sides of the house at this 
period. Cf. Aesch. F. L. 79, with Dem. F. L. 10, 11, 302, 310. 



88 PHILIP 

seated on his throne in the public assembly of his 
vassals, and of those famous knights whom Demos- 
thenes had disparaged as "no better than other 
men ; " * standing before him a little group of unarmed 
strangers with their sponsor and their herald, who 
represented the crown of civilization in their time. 
The older men first addressed the king, stating briefly 
the griefs and proposals of their city, and made way 
for the two young immortals, who behaved, however, 
very much as mortals conscious of budding reputa- 
tions. For we gather that they launched out into 
lengthy harangues about the ancestors of the king 
and of themselves, and the eternal laws of wrong and 
right ; and the greater Immortal of the two forgot 
his notes, and breaking down in mid-air, had to be 
handled kindly by the " barbarian," and encouraged 
to collect himself ; but all to no purpose. Thereupon 
the herald bade the ambassadors withdraw out of the 
presence ; and the Commission fell to wrangling about 
the success or failure of this member and that, but 
in the midst of the dispute came the king's men 
to lead them back to the presence. And when 
they were seated, Philip replied to them severally 
with such courtesy and address that those masters 
of debate knew not afterwards which to admire most, 
his temper or his wit. 2 Thereafter he bade them to 
a feast, and entreated them so well at his table 
and always while they stayed at his court, that they 
went back to Larissa vying in praise of him, but 
agreed, nevertheless, when they should come to 
Athens, to assume a more discreet reserve. 

1 Olynth. ii. 17. 2 Aesch. F. L. 41 ff. 



ATHENIAN COMMISSION AT PELL A 89 

When the relative strength of the two powers is 
considered, and regard is had to the terms of the 
subsequent peace, it is evident that in all this matter 
Athens had done the kissing, and Philip but offered 
his cheek. And the mutual contradictions of the rival 
orators in the famous Embassy Speeches leave no 
room for doubt that the question of Amphipolis and 
the mines had not been insisted upon by the Com- 
mission, probably not advanced at all, for fear 
negotiations should miscarry from the very outset. 1 

Philip commissioned his herald to go to Athens 
with the envoys and bear a courteous letter, agree- 
ing to a peace on the terms idi possidetis, with a 
guarantee that he would not attack the Chersonese, 
and adding, it seems, even a proposal of alliance. 
The Athenian Ministry asked no better terms, and 
received with all good will a few days later Philip's 
Commissioners, among whom were two destined to 
a wider fame, Parmenio, future lieutenant of Alex- 
ander in the conquest of Asia, and Antipater, the 
coming Regent of Europe, who was to return to 
Athens in very different case. 

Meanwhile Philip himself did not rest on his oars. 
When the events soon to happen are considered, there 
can be little doubt that now or earlier he made 
secret overtures to the Phocians and to Thebes, and 
invited the deputations from those states which met 
him on his return to Pella. A man of Philip's clear 

1 Cf. Demosthenes' own view of the hopelessness of entertain- 
ing any idea of recovering Amphipolis, expressed long before this 
date {Phil. i. 12). 



90 PHILIP 

purpose leaves as little as may be to chance. But in 
the interval he betook himself to the Hebrus, and 
turned his hand to reducing an old foe, or old ally, 
now leagued with Athens, the chieftain Kersobleptes, 
whose dominions, lying very near to the Chersonese, 
might be put out of Macedonian reach by the terms 
of the peace, if not annexed before its ratification. 
We know no details of this campaign ; we hear only 
vaguely of the Macedonian armies as now on the coast 
of Thrace, now on the Holy Mountain, which over- 
looks the sea of Marmora, and in May Philip returns 
to Pella with Kersobleptes at his chariot wheels. 
There a crowd of envoys from the Greek States was 
waiting, together with the Athenian Commission, 
returned with full powers to ratify peace and alliance. 
A biographer of Philip may resign with heartfelt 
thankfulness to the historian of Greece the minute 
examination of what had taken place at Athens ere 
the Commission started again for Pella. And, indeed, 
it may be questioned whether such history as can 
be written from the forensic assertions of two rival 
orators, each concerned to falsify his own and his 
opponent's part in a negotiation which had come in 
three years to stink in Athenian nostrils, does not 
fill, as it is, too large a place in standard works, to 
the wearying of the reader and the distortion of 
perspective. The sum of events is this. The majority 
of Athenians were plainly for peace at almost any 
price, and both Aeschines and Demosthenes, then 
stepping on to the threshold of office, went with the 
majority. Certain difficulties arose from the fact that 



AFFAIRS AT ATHENS 91 

the city had allies, who must be included, and that 
the Macedonian Commission declined on Philip's behalf 
to admit all of these to the Treaty. The Macedonians 
gave way in the matter of Kersobleptes (a concession 
which availed the Thracian not at all), but set their 
faces as adamant against the Phocians, now impiously 
holding Delphi and Thermopylae, and lying under 
ban therefor. But the Athenian Ministry, in its 
present mood, was not prepared to stand out for 
Phocians any more than for Amphipolis, and having 
put off its allies with vague assertions (for the allies, 
it seems, did not wish to meet Philip so far beyond 
halfway as the dominant partner), took the oaths on 
the Macedonian terms. Philip's Commission, greatly 
complimented, left for Pella, and the Athenian 
envoys were reappointed and sent out again by way 
of Euboea. Much was said afterwards about their 
delays ; they should have gone direct to Thrace and 
by swearing Philip then and there, have saved many 
towns ; but evidently the Ministry had no mind to tax 
Philip's forbearance, and had indeed bidden their Com- 
mission take the usual road, and wait at Pella till the 
conqueror should be pleased to come back from Thrace. 
Historians have laboured to account for this 
humble attitude of Athens by laying stress on her 
uneasiness for her citizens held captive since the 
fall of Olynthus, on her hatred of Thebes, and on 
the deception practised by Philip's agents. But, 
surely, no further explanation is called for (if we look 
at the acts of her responsible statesmen, Eubulus 
or Phocion, and not only listen to the grandiose 



92 PHILIP 

utterances of Demosthenes) than her own conscious- 
ness that her effective forces had become, in 346, 
feeble indeed compared to those of the Macedonian. 

Never did Philip hold better cards than at Pella 
in May, 346, and never better did he play his game. 
Encamped about him in the plain of the Vardar was 
such an army as united Greece could not excel ; and 
embassies from Athens, from Thebes, from the 
Phocians, from the Thessalian synod, from Aetolia, 
were bidding for his favour, each interpreting in 
their own sense the purpose which alone he knew. 
His whole soul was set on one great end — uncon- 
ditional supremacy over the Hellenes — and he had the 
most definite plan of action. ]^irst ? he must secure 
the command of the land route into central Greece ; 
second, he looked to obtain a recognized position in 
the inner communion of the Hellenes ; * and third, 
he proposed to reduce the Greek states to an inno- 
cuous equality. In effect, he would seize and hold 
Thermopylae ; he would assume the double role of 
champion of the Delphian Apollo and patron of 
Athens ; and he would crush the Phocian " Grand 
Company," Sparta, and eventually Thebes. 

The game must have been pretty playing for 
Philip. It had leaked out that he was going to 
march south; but whether to do more than help 
Parmenio against Halus, the envoys were not agreed. 
Collectively the Greek states, represented at Pella, 
had suspicions of Philip's ultimate intentions; 
1 Cf. Dem. Be Pace, 19, 22. 



PHILIP GOES SOUTH 93 

individually, they cherished immediate aims which he 
could advance. The one thing needful for the Mace- 
donian was to keep doubt of his destination from 
becoming certainty till his goal was in sight, that he 
might arrive within touch of the venal Phocians in 
Thermopylae before any one could forestall his bid. 
It was easy to retain the Greek envoys, who knew 
well enough that their safe conduct through Thessaly 
depended on the king's advices to his lieutenant ; * 
nor was it difficult, by giving secret pledges to their 
several enmities, to prevent their concerted action. 
The Athenians were talked to privily about the The- 
bans, the Thebans about the Phocians, the Phocians 
about the Thebans. Late in May, the peace with 
Athens being still unratified and no decisive 
answer having been given to anybody, Philip is- 
sued marching orders, and came through the pass of 
Tempe witli all the envoys intriguing and back- 
biting in his train ; and so to Pherae, the scene of his 
triumph six years before. There he called a halt, 
as though to breathe before assaulting Halus. And 
at last in a khan, which stood on the great south 
road, over against a temple of the Twin Brothers, 
Philip swore a solemn oath to observe peace with the 
Athenians, and with their children's children, and put 
forward representatives of all his " allied " cities, from 
Epirus to Carclia in the Chersonese, to do the like. 
The final terms implied the abandonment of Amphi- 
polis to Philip ; the recognition that Carclia was his 

1 Needless here to listen to the eternal cry of bribery — the 
Athenian "Nous sommes trahis ! " (Dem. Cor. 32). 



94 PHILIP 

ally ; the relinquishing of the great eastern islands, 
Rhodes, Chios, and Cos, to the satrap of Caria ; and 
the acknowledgment of the right of the Byzantines 
to levy their own tolls in the Bosphorus. In effect, 
Athens accepted the fact that she was no longer 
imperial. Nevertheless, the ten Athenians received 
Philip's oaths and accepted a safe conduct, and, not 
a little relieved, took ship to Euboea, and came again 
to Athens early in June. 

In time to come the Athenians were to repent 
that their envoys had accepted the oaths of Philip's 
allied towns by their proxies. They had bidden, said 
they, their Commission visit each several " allied " 
town in turn and judge its claim to be included or 
excluded ; and the failure to obey led to wild accusa- 
tions of venality and bad faith, culminating in one 
famous charge. But all that can be said nowadays 
is, that manifestly at the time of ratification the 
Athenians were too well pleased with peace at any 
cost to press such a point. And, indeed, it is difficult 
to see how better the envoys could have acted. If 
the master of so many battalions would not take 
oaths but at his own good time, who was to force 
him ? And until he had taken them and given the 
envoys safe conduct, how should they go to the 
Thracian cities ? At Pherae Philip was too strong and 
too nigh for the Athenians to be other than thankful 
to obtain full ratification of their peace without 
another day's delay. The cry about Carclia and 
against the Peace comes later in time, when the 
impunity which the Macedonian's ambition, not his 



PHILIP AT THERMOPYLAE 95 

fear, secured to Athens, while she lay at his mercy, 
had restored her assurance. For from first to last 
the Athenian ascribed to fear rather than to generosity 
any act of grace. 

Whether Philip took Halus now or later, we know 
not ; * in any case it held out but little longer before 
being dismantled and given to the keeping of the 
Pharsalians. At any rate, it is clear that he delayed 
the shortest possible time before rounding Othrys, 
and confronting the eight or ten thousand merce- 
naries ranged under the Phocian banner at Thermo- 
pylae. A small Lacedaemonian force was with these, 
and a weak Athenian squadron watched events from 
Oreus. For the temper of the mercenaries was very 
doubtful ; their pay was in arrear, and their leader 
had quarrelled with the Phocian government. 2 Philip 
halted, and sent a herald into the Pass. Phalaecus, 
the condotticre, asked for time. He had envoys at 
Athens, and wished to know whether that city meant 
to support him. Should she not send help, his posi- 
tion would be scarcely tenable, with the Thebans in his 
rear, and the best army in Europe ready to assault 
his front. So the pickets of Phalaecus and Philip 
watched each other across the Asopus until the 
seventh day, or thereabouts, when the Phocian 
envoys returned to say that the Athenian assemblies 
were passing idle votes against Philip, and idle votes 

1 Demosthenes says (F. L. 36) that Philip had professed to 
detain the Athenian envoys, that they might mediate in the 
matter of Halus. 

2 Aesch. F. X. 132. 



96 PHILIP 

of sympathy with his opponents, 1 but plainly did 
not intend to send a lance or contribute a drachma. 
The Lacedaemonians decamped then and there ; the 
Athenian fleet made no sign ; and three days later 
Phalaecus had sold the Pass and the Phocian cause 
to Philip, and marched his sacrilegious bravos into 
the Peloponnese ; whence they betook themselves to 
Elis, Crete, and Sicily, and as the Greeks loved to 
believe, perished to a man miserably by the wrath 
of Apollo. 

Philip was within the gates of Greece. What would 
he do ? For whom, against whom, would he be ? All 
Greece waited, hoping somewhat fearing more, Athens 
especially looking to her walls, and calling in her 
country folk, though it was near the season of the 
rural feast of Heracles. With masterly duplicity, 
Philip held out the hand of frank fellowship to 
Thebes, 2 who had been on the right side in the Sacred 
War when Lacedaemon and Athens had been on the 
wrong. The Boeotian cities, Orchomenus, Coronea, 
and Corsiae, whilom allies of the Phocians, were handed 
over to Theban mercies, 3 and Philip marched into the 
mountains to avenge Apollo. Fire and sword went 
through Phocis, as through no Greek state since Epa- 
minondas had raided Laconia. Twenty-three cities 
were dismantled, and broken up into open villages, 4 
a device learned from the great Theban, and after ten 
years the Delphians were led back to their Delphi, and 
put in possession of its spoiled and violated shrine. 

1 Dera. F. L. 50, 181. 2 Cf. Paus. x. 2, 5. 

3 Dem. F. L. 149. 4 Diod. xvi. 60. 



PANHELLENISM 97 

The God who sat on the navel of Hellas acknow- 
ledged his new champion through the mouth of his 
Prophetess. The ancient and venerated union of the 
Amphictyons elected him by acclamation to the 
empty seat of the Phocians, receiving him thus into 
the innermost circle of the Hellenes. And in the 
character of the greatest Hellene of them all he sat 
in the Pythian chair of presidency that autumn, and 
gave the bay-leaf crowns to the victors at the games. 
With the noise of him all Greece was filled, even as 
the brain of that half-witted Arcadian, who, arrested 
at Delphi, cried that he was running and would 
run still, until he came to a people that knew not 
Philip. 1 

For the six years or more that follow, Philip's life 
alas ! is withdrawn, except at rare intervals, from 
our knowledge. Alas, indeed ! for these are the 
years in which his men-at-arms marched, the first 
foreigners since history had begun, into the Pelo- 
ponnese, and he himself besieged and took cities on 
the Adriatic, and led his spearmen up to, or even 
beyond, the Danube ; years, too, in which his final 
ambition took shape, "for it was coming to be his 
desire to be designated Captain-General of Hellas, 
and to wage the War against the Persian." 2 To 
such a purpose did the old Isocrates incite him now, 3 
fired in the evening of his long life with a vision 
of a panhellenic Union, in which the petty quarrels 

1 Theopomp. fr. 235. 2 Diod. xvi. 60. 

8 His Letter to Philip was written about 345. 

7 



98 PHILIP 

of cities, which had made history during all his 
days, would be forgotten. Years, finally, in which 
the father began to educate the son to be not 
less a warrior and more a Hellene than himself, little 
thinking how entirely the execution of the great 
project, with which his own soul was filled, was to 
fall with all its glory to the boy. 

It seems that Philip himself went back to his 
capital to spend the winter of 346-345/ leaving 
garrisons in Phocis and Thermopylae, 2 and orders to 
his lieutenants to watch Thebes and obtain a footing 
in Euboea, disposed already in his favour ; and that 
in the spring of 345 he sent out agents and troops to 
secure to himself almost all the states of Greece, 
except Attica. Everywhere his game was to divide, a 
policy which he may have learned from Epaminondas. 
Thessaly, so apt to be united by a powerful Baron, 
was split in four, and Councils of Ten, acting for 
Philip, and paying to him the revenues of the land, 3 
replaced the baronial rule in the cities. Euboea was 
won over with the single doubtful exception of Chalcis, 
and Macedonian garrisons were placed in Porthmus 
and Oreus, 4 the points of entrance and departure on 
the north road from Attica, which the embassies were 
used to follow. In the previous autumn the king 
seems to have gone to Thebes, to be received as a 
gracious benefactor, where twenty years before he 

1 Piod. xvi. 60. 

2 Dem. Ad Pp. Phil. 4, says that Philip garrisoned Nicaea, 
near Thermopylae. 

8 Phil. ii. 22 ; iii. 26, 33. 

4 Dem. Phil, iii. 12. 57, 58 ; F. L. 219. 



PHILIP AND ATHENS 99 

had lived in exile. In 345, however, the most part 
of Philip's intrigue and coercion was exercised within 
the Isthmus to the breaking-up of the traditional 
supremacy of Sparta, against whom he could allege 
that she had ranged herself in Thermopylae with 
the violators of Delphi. But, although compelled 
now by superior force to swallow peace with Argos, 1 
and to see Arcadia set up again, 2 and to resign Mes- 
sene, 3 Sparta never submitted herself altogether, but in 
years to come alone of all the Greeks refused to serve 
under Philip's banner against Persia, and broke out 
against his son, so soon as he was gone into Asia. 
Furthermore we hear now of Philip's agents in Elis 
as the first cause of intestine dissensions in all its 
cities and of faction fights and massacres ; 4 and also 
that he projected the seizure of Megara. 

Athens herself, however, Philip did not touch. 5 
Determined as he was to end her claims to imperial 
dominion on the coasts which he conceived to be his 
own, he respected nevertheless the soil of Attica more 
than if it had been holy ground. And not only so, 
but by letter after letter, and envoy after envoy, he 
tried to soothe the fears of the city and heal her 
wounded feelings. First he sent her two invitations 

1 Paus. ii. 20. 1 ; vii. 11. 2 ; Dem. F. L. 260. 

2 Paus. viii. 7. 4, 27, 10. 

8 Dem. Phil. ii. 13, 20, 26, and arg. 

4 Dem. F. L. 260, 294 ; Phil. iii. 27 ; Paus. iv. 28, 4. 

5 There is a loose rhetorical passage in Phil. ii. 36, which 
might imply that Philip made a descent on the Attic coast ; but 
we may be sure that, if a fact, we should have heard of it again 
and asrain. 



100 PHILIP 

to participate in the pious task of vindicating 
Apollo ; * then, taking no umbrage that she did not 
comply, he communicated his own success in a third 
letter, with many expressions of good will. 2 All the 
Athenians taken at Olynthus returned unransomed to 
their country, — and indeed Philip prided himself on 
taking no money for an Athenian. Furthermore by 
the mouths of his agents he promised constantly that 
Athens should reap no small advantage from the 
Peace she had made ; 3 and doubtless he promised 
sincerely, and withal fulfilled his word, as it seemed 
to him, by crushing her old foes in Greece, and 
exalting her as the one inviolate Queen of civili- 
zation. Lastly, most signal act of all, some time 
in 344, when master of all Greece beside, Philip 
sent one, Python, to plead against the evil things 
said constantly of him in Athens, and to bid for the 
good will it seemed so hard to win, by proposing to 
amend the Peace in those clauses which had vexed 
the Athenians most. And all this labour of con- 
ciliation, is it to be referred to no nobler an instinct 
than fear ? It can scarcely be thought to spring from 
that in 346, but what are we to say in 338, when 
point for point it was taken up again after Chaeronea ? 
Rather to Philip's honour let it be recorded, as to 
the honour of any warrior-statesman, that sword in 
hand he paid homage to the arts of peace. And not 
less be it recorded to the honour of Athens, that she 
did not accept his homage. For ever since her third 

1 Dem. F. L. 51. 2 Dem. F. L. 36. 

3 Dem. Halonn. 33. 



THE PHILIPPIC CKUSAOfc 101 

Embassy liad broken up on its way north, hearing 
that Philip was already within Thermopylae, she had 
protested against this great armament that paraded 
Greece, sparing only herself with an intolerable 
sufferance. Chafing at Philip's reception among the 
Amphictyons, she would have disowned even the 
Treaty she had sworn, had Demosthenes not inter- 
vened. 1 Checked in this act of folly, she was fain to 
console herself with decreeing exile against the chief 
authors of the Peace, and with harbouring all men 
disaffected to Philip, and with applauding Demos- 
thenes when he flouted Philip's envoys, and with 
proposing preposterous amendments to the Treaty, 
and with sending Diopithes and a fleet to the 
Chersonese to sail as near to war as he might in 
time of peace. Now is the time when Demosthenes 
emerges finally from his uncertain youth, and, 
winning the ear of the citizens, adopts a strong 
policy to be maintained more or less till the day of 
his death. No longer is he " unstable in his ways, 
incapable of constancy to one policy or to one party," 
as Theopompus said of him in one of those vigorous 
sentences, 2 which show how much we have lost in 
losing the " Philippica." 

It is easy to sit in judgment now on this policy 
of Demosthenes, easy to prove that resistance to 
Philip was worse than useless, and that Athens had 
not the internal resources to enable her to assume 
again an imperial position. She lost, maybe, the 
full favour of the master of her fate, and she should 
1 Be Pace, 13. 2 Pr. 106. 



102 'PHILIP 

have been urged to take a less selfish and more 
panhellenic view of the great king, who only aspired 
to lead united Hellas against her ancient foe! 
Demosthenes was unjust, improvident, blind to the 
lesson of his age — be it so ! Cicero too was blind 
when he opposed Caesar and supported Octavian. The 
greatest statesmen have been just as blind in every 
age of change. But just as individual character gains 
more by fighting out a battle than by a cunning 
surrender, so the character of a people purges itself 
in strenuous resistance of base elements that would 
increase perilously, did it subordinate wholly its 
choleric emotions to its pure reason. And inas- 
much as this is so, the sympathy which has always 
gone out to the leaders of forlorn hopes, and to 
those who butt against stone walls, and to those 
who will not take quarter, can be justified of its 
unreason. And, moreover, it may well be doubted 
if the tradition of Attic letters and art, with which 
the Hellenistic age began, would have been near so 
vivid without this last flash of Athenian freedom. 
In any case, there would have been no such en- 
samples of style and Atticism as the second, third, 
and fourth Philippics, the speeches on the Chersonese, 
the Embassy, and the Crown. 

After 346, there was to be no more fruitless 
epideictic oratory. Demosthenes and his party were 
terribly in earnest, and by their deeds, as much as by 
their words, laid up the store of hate which Philip 
bequeathed to Alexander. Now Demosthenes is 
making a tour of the Peloponnese, in the vain hope of 



HALONNESUS 103 

detaching the Arcadians and the rest from Philip ; 
now at Athens he is urging the Messenian envoys to 
disobey Macedonian orders and stand by Sparta; 
but once more in vain. Then his partisan Timarchus 
moves that it be penal to supply Philip with muni- 
tions of war ; and when the king sends his envoys to 
protest against all this covert hostility, Demosthenes 
retorts with the second of his Philippics, a master- 
piece of invective against this sacker of cities, who 
cried peace where there was no peace, and suborned 
a great party to aid " in putting all the world 
under his feet." 

With the winter Philip was gone north again, and 
so far as we know, came south of Thermopylae 
neither in 344 nor in five succeeding years, tie was 
in Ambracia and Epirus, perhaps, too, in the western 
isles. He conducted a campaign against the races 
of the north, practising the Persian policy of trans- 
ferring wholesale populations from mountain to plain, 
and plain to mountain, the better to break tribal 
traditions ; * and coming down to Carclia, he made 
the Athenian farmers in the Chersonese shake in 
their shoes, and send urgent appeals to Piraeus. Of his 
direct dealings with Greece, if indeed he had many 
in these years, we know only his disputes with 
Athens about Poticlaea and in the matter of Halon- 
nesus, a wretched rock north of Euboea, which had 
become a nest of pirates, and been smoked out by a 
Macedonian admiral. Whereupon the neighbouring 
Peparethians, pirates also no doubt, settled on it, 

1 Justin, viii. 5, referring obviously to Paeonia. 



104 PHILIP 

but were ousted promptly, and their own island was 
raided. In which matter no one outside would have 
concerned themselves, had it not chanced that 
Athens, conceiving herself to have a lien on both 
Halonnesus and Peparethus, took occasion to revive 
a dispute as to the uii possidetis clause in the treaty 
of 346. 

The said clause had not proved efficacious in the 
sense intended by the Athenian Ministry of the time ; 
for in addition to the difficulty about the Thracian 
cities, taken by Philip in the interval between the 
proposal and the conclusion of the Peace, there were 
on the one hand, many Greek cities, such as the 
Elean colonies in Ambracia, independent of either 
party to the treaty, and open, therefore, to sub- 
sequent absorption by Philip, to the prejudice of 
Athens ; and, on the other, certain cities and islands 
existed which Athens considered to be in her own 
" empire," but for so many years had neither occu- 
pied nor done anything to protect, that her claim 
was scarcely to be maintained. Halonnesus was just 
such a case. Philip asserted, with some show of 
equity, that the Athenian right to that island had 
lapsed, but, for the sake of peace and quietness, he 
offered now to "present " it to Athens. The Ministry 
of the Eepublic stipulated, however, that it be under- 
stood clearly that Philip " restored " the island — a 
quarrel about words, or, as it happens in the Greek 
speech, about syllables, which raised the whole issue. 
Thereupon Hegesippus was sent up to Pella in 343, to 
press on Philip certain comprehensive amendments 



AMENDMENTS TO THE PEACE 105 

to the original Peace, designed to cover this case and 
those of all Hellenic cities not defined clearly in 346. 
He was instructed to propose that : (1) the phrase uti 
possidetis be amended to a declaration that each party 
do retahi his lawful property ; (2) all Greeks — being 
not parties, and still independent — be recognized 
as independent, and guaranteed by both parties ; (3) 
Philip do restore the Thracian cities, taken after his 
envoys had accepted the treaty in March, 3-46. These 
amendments had all been proposed to, and received 
in silence by, Python and his fellow Macedonian 
envoys at Athens in the previous year ; and it pleased 
the Athenians, therefore, to assume that Philip had 
accepted them in principle. 

The king, however, irritated by the attitude of 
Athens, brusquely removed any such illusions from 
Hegesippus' mind. Amendment number one he re- 
jected flatly ; it was designed to cover a claim for the 
cession of Amphipolis and Poticlaea, and other j3laces 
which he, Philip, had held these ten years. To number 
two he made no demur : there was nothing in Greece 
worth speaking of still absolutely independent of 
himself, and the proposed clause seems not to have 
been framed to be retrospective. On number three 
he offered to accept the arbitration of some umpire 
mutually acceptable. No such umpire, however, 
was to be found, and the whole negotiation led to 
nothing but recriminations, encroachments, and re- 
prisals which culminated three years later in rupture. 
During the irritation caused by Hegesippus' subse- 
quent report at Athens, the famous charge of treason 



106 PHILIP 

in the First Embassy, in 346, was preferred at last by 
Demosthenes against Aeschines in terms very trucu- 
lent and hostile to Philip ; but partly because all 
men knew that Demosthenes as ambassador had 
acted largely in sympathy with the man he was now 
accusing after three years ; partly because it was never 
approved that a man should turn upon his colleague, 
however greatly they had differed ; partly perhaps 
also because the Ministerial Centre were not prepared 
to associate themselves altogether with utterances so 
provocative to Philip, the case resulted in acquittal 
and the enriching of literature with two incomparable 
forensic harangues. 

For the moment the restless Macedonian was not 
concerned with Greece. He had reverted to his 
great project, postponed five years before, of con- 
quering the western shores of the Black Sea, and 
the northern coasts of the sea of Marmora, and all 
inland up to the Danube. To effect this purpose 
he must break the back of the Odrysian Thracians 
in Roumelia, of the Triballi in Bulgaria, and the 
" Scythians " in the Dobrudscha, and be acknow- 
ledged suzerain by the great Propontic Greek 
colonies, Byzantium, Perinthus, and Selymbria. That 
done, and the Hellespont watched from Carclia, he 
would have all the corn trade in his own hands, 1 the 
food of Greece at his mercy, and the way to Asia 
open. 

His army was mobilized in the spring of 342, 
and he went off to the north. The disajmearance of 
1 Dem. Cor. 87. 



WAR IN THE BALKANS 107 

contemporary chronicles has reduced our knowledge 
of this great military venture to almost nothing, and 
historians have been led to ignore 1 almost entirely an 
expedition comparable to nothing in antiquity since 
Darius' famous march to Scythia, and a worthy pre- 
lude to the conquest of JVsia. We know that Philip 
and his army were out for ten months at least, and, 
spending the winter in the field, 2 endured, leader 
and follower alike, grievous hardships by storm, sick- 
ness, and war. 3 But we hear nothing more precise 
until the spring of 341, when they had returned 
across the Balkans to the upper waters of the Hebrus, 
and were warring with the Odrysian tribes. 4 In 
Roumelia it was reported that the Athenian Diopithes, 
sent out to reinforce the colonists of the Chersonesus, 
had assaulted Cardia and raided inland Thrace. 
Whereupon Philip detached a force for the relief of 
Cardia and the chastising of the Athenian. Never- 
theless, it was not to be war yet with the Republic, 
for, when taxed, she disowned her admiral, 5 who 
indeed was little better than a blackmailing buccaneer 
with unpaid pirates at his orders. 

But all this year a belief gathered strength that 
Philip was about to rob Athens of the Chersonese, 
and then speedily of her own liberty. Demosthenes 
gives that opinion utterance in a speech boldly justi- 
fying Diopithes, and in the third and greatest of his 

1 Possible allusions to this expedition are to be found in 
Prontinus, ii. 8. 14, and Strabo, p. 320. 

2 Chers. 14. 3 Chers. 35. 4 Chers. Arg. 3. 
6 See Chers. 28. 



108 PHILIP 

Philippics, wherein he demands that all this latent 
bickering and underground trifling be exchanged for 
brute war, open and declared, cost what it may; 
and in a last Philippic, often ascribed to another 
orator, but " Demosthenic " from end to end, wherein 
the Athenians are warned that Philip in Thrace and 
the Chersonese is only preliminary to Philip in 
Athens, and that every drachma and every spear 
the city can muster must be used in war against him, 
who makes pretension, forsooth, to enlist the Greeks 
against another barbarian king who is far less their 
enemy. Two overt acts, moreover, were perpetrated 
by the Athenian Ministry, under Demosthenes' guid- 
ance, which Philip could not view with equanimity. 
Firstly, they formed a kind of anti-Macedonian 
League among some of the smaller states of Greece, 1 
and chiefly won over to it Euboea, by sending 
Phocion to help its cities to expel Philip's partisans 
and to range themselves under Callias of Chalcis, 
and by promising to recognize the entire autonomy 
of the island for the future. Secondly, they sent 
envoys up to the Great King in Susa, to warn 
him of Philip's panhellenic project, and induce 
him to assist Philip's enemies. To counteract the 
first of these hostile moves and the depredations of 
Callias and Athenian volunteers, 2 Philip himself made 
a rapid journey, it seems, to Thessaly 3 in 341, leaving 

1 The rebuilding of the long walls of Megara by Phocion must 
have taken place at this period (Plut. Phoc. 15) as a sequel to 
long intrigues prosecuted there by agents of Philip v. agents of 
Athens. Cf. 

2 Aesch. Ctes. 83. 3 Phil. Hi. 12 ; iv. 9. 



BYZANTIUM 109 

his army in eastern Thrace ; and in order to reproach 
the Athenians for their intrigue with Persia, and for 
many covert acts of enmity, he despatched a long 
epistle to be read in the Assembly. But still it was 
not war. 

The forbearance, however, of the Macedonian, his 
reference of disputed points to arbitration, and his 
abstention from the Chersonese, served him with the 
Athenian Ministry as conciliation usually serves with 
an oriental government. In short it emboldened the 
Republic to take matters into her own hands. She 
had encouraged the Thracian chieftains already in 
the summer of 341 ; 1 now she went further, and sent 
Demosthenes to Byzantium to urge the guardians 
of the Bosphorus to break off relations with Philip, 
close their gates on the land side, and hold out. 

Byzantium, like Olynthus, had been for many 
years no friend to Athens. She had shared with the 
eastern islands and the cities of Asia and Thrace that 
intense dislike of Athenian imperial pretensions, 
which found violent vent both after Sparta's triumph 
in 404, and again in the " Social War." If entire 
autonomy was not to be attained, any barbarian 
supporter — the Great King, the Carian viceroy, the 
Thracian princes, even the Macedonian himself — was 
preferred to the aggressive Ionian Republic, which 
demanded so much and gave so little. But now 
Athens was too weak to pretend to be more than an 
ally, and Philip had become the more dangerous foe 
to freedom. So the Byzantines listened to the 
1 Ep. Phil. 8. ff. 



110 PHILIP 

voice of Demosthenes, and persuaded Perinthus and 
Selymbria to listen likewise ; and almost at the same 
moment the Macedonian army in its winter quarters 
learned that the Propontic cities had declared against 
them, and that the Athenians had solemnly removed 
their pillar graven with the terms of the peace and 
alliance of 346. 

Demosthenes throughout the year 341 speaks of 
Philip so constantly as moving on Byzantium, that 
we must understand the Macedonian army to have 
spent all that summer, autumn, and perhaps winter 
in eastern Thrace, reducing the dominions of the 
chieftains Teres, Sitalces, and Kersobleptes, to com- 
plete submission. There seems to have been a sturdy 
resistance, and in consequence a settlement more 
drastic than it was Philip's wont to impose. Not 
only were the Thracian lands compelled henceforward 
to pay him tithe, but he founded military colonies 
here and there in all the region, continuing a policy 
inaugurated by himself at Philippi, and destined to 
be developed signally by his son and his successors 
in Asia, Egypt, and Greece. Of two among his new 
cities we know no more than the names, Bine and 
Philippopolis ; but a third is said to have been a 
punishment-colony, founded as a sink for two thousand 
bad characters, and named Poneropolis, " city of bad 
men." 1 In the early spring of 340 the settlement 

1 Theopomp. fr. 122. Plutarch, Pliny, and Suidas repeat the 
statement, no doubt, from this passage. Cf. Strabo calls it Calybe 
(p. 320). 



SIEGE OF PERINTHUS 111 

of Thrace was accomplished ; and gathering up a 
siege-train, the like of which had not been seen in 
Europe, Philip marched his great army 1 clown to 
the sea of Marmora, and sat down before Perinthus. 

The siege which ensued must have been very 
famous in antiquity for Diodorus to have admitted 
so detailed an account into his Universal Chronicle. 
It marked, in fact, an epoch in military history, for 
in it was first applied on a large scale the scientific 
method of assault by simultaneous sap, bombard- 
ment, and storm, with which the operations of 
Alexander at Tyre and Gaza, of Demetrius at Rhodes, 
and of the Romans at Syracuse were soon to make 
the world familiar. 2 Clumsy devices as the rams and 
catapults and movable storming-towers may seem to 
modern science, and hugely laborious as were the 
works needed to bring them into action — the isthmus, 
for instance, built through deep water at Tyre, the 
mounds about the walls of Gaza, the valley rilled 
with stones and trees below the Rock of Chorienes 
— such expedients were the only ones by which 
natural citadels could be reduced. In the Propontic 
cities, it seems, Philip could find no " Macedonizing " 
traitors or not enough ; at hand was the sea, on 
which no blockade was ever quite effective in the 
day of small sailing craft. An Athenian admiral, 
Chares, was hanging off the Chersonese, and Philip, 
in order to get his own fleet through the Dardanelles 

1 Justin, ix. 1, alludes to its great size. Diodorus says he had 
30,000 men before Perinthus alone. 

2 Cf. Frontin. iii. 9. 8, for Philip's methods. 



112 piiilip 

at all, had to make a raid into the peninsula, and 
seize the ports from which privateers were issuing. 1 
Even when the Macedonian admiral was safe in 
the sea of Marmora, he was unable to prevent 
the Byzantines throwing supplies continually into 
Perinthus, or the Persian satrap of the southern 
shore from running large convoys of provisions, 
munitions of war, and men-at-arms. 2 For the Great 
King at Susa had taken in earnest the Athenian 
warning, and despatched the most imperative orders 
to his governors in Anatolia to aid and abet the 
foes of the Macedonian. 

Perinthus was extraordinarily strong, being perched 
on a precipitous hill rising at the end of a narrow 
neck, a furlong out at sea; and as in so many 
picturesque cities of the Levant at this day, its 
lofty houses huddled one on the other, round the 
rock " as in a theatre." 3 With sap and rams and 
huge wooden towers rising a hundred and twenty 
feet on their wheels, Philip was not long in breach- 
ing and clearing the lines of defence across the 
isthmus ; but meanwhile the besieged had built an 
inner curtain, and the assault was all to begin again. 
The Macedonian projectiles cleared this second wall, 
but the Perinthians returned to the defence, and, 
well supplied with missiles, wore down the first stress 
of Philip's assault. The king changed his tactics, 
and divided his great army into successive storming 
parties, keeping the besieged without rest night or 
day. Piece by piece the inner lines were reduced 
1 Justin, xi. 1. 2 Diod. xvi. 75. 8 Diod. I.e. 



SIEGE OF BYZANTIUM 113 

to ruin, and their defenders to despair. At last they 
gave way, and the Macedonians rushed in, but only 
to be checked immediately at the lowest tier of 
houses, linked together by barricades. Of such ram- 
parts there were as many as there were streets. The 
siege had lasted already far into the summer, and 
thanks to the Byzantines, the besieged were as well 
supplied as ever. 

Philip tried a diversion. Drawing off a picked 
force, he vanished to the eastward, fell suddenly on 
Selymbria, 1 and presently appeared before Byzantium 
itself ere the citizens could call in their forces from 
Perinthus. The chief magistrate, one Leon, a student 
of peripatetic philosophy, and destined to be the 
historian of this siege, came out to parley. The 
Macedonian king in a merry mood said that, being 
smitten with love for the fair city, he did but 
come to her gates to sue for favours. "But these 
are not lovers' lutes," cried the Byzantine, looking 
round at the pikeheacls, and went in again forthwith. 2 
Philip himself led the assault with sap and storm. 3 
The place was neither naturally so strong as Perin- 
thus, nor so well fortified, and its citizens were but 
just equal to manning the great length of the wall. 
The Macedonian fleet hovered round the sea-front, 

1 Although this assault is mentioned only in the probably 
spurious documents inserted in the Speech cle Corona, I feel no 
doubt it occurred. The name would hardly appear in those 
documents without suggestion from some authority ; and, geo- 
graphically, such an assault was almost inevitable on a march from 
Perinthus to Byzantium. 

2 Suid. s. v. Aewv ; and Philostr. jun., De Soph. i. 

3 Hesych. Miles. Orig. Const. 26. 

8 



114 PHILIP 

and raided up the Bosphorus, and into the Black Sea. 
But the Byzantine resistance was obstinate, and just 
strong enough ; the defenders attempted no sortie, 
but were content to hold the wall in the hope 
that time would come to their aid. The crisis came 
on a moonless night of wind and rain in the early 
winter of 339. The storming party was already at 
the wall when, it is said, the dogs of the city gave 
an alarm, and the defenders, rushing to their posts, 
saw by the light of a falling meteor in the northern 
sky the nature of their peril. 1 The surprise had 
failed, the storming party fell back, and the citizens 
raised a statue to Hecate the Torch-bearer, and in 
her honour struck coins bearing her emblem, the 
crescent moon, which Byzantium has bequeathed to 
Constantinople, and Islam borrowed all over the 
world. Thenceforward the tide turned against the 
besieger. His efforts to seduce Leon were not suc- 
cessful. The wall was repaired and heightened with 
tombstones, like that of Athens of old. The Athenian 
Chares, having got through the Hellespont, fortified 
a headland over against the Princes' Islands, and 
helped the Byzantines to rout Philip's fleet ; 2 but 
his wife dying, he sailed away, to be replaced by a 
better man, the famous Phocion, with whom Athens 
sent the best fleet she had commissioned since the 
battle of Naxos. The Carian satrap brought up 

1 This tale, told in most detail by Hesychius Milesius, 27, is 
alluded to by Steph. Byz. s.v. Bocnropos ; and by Eustathius, 
ad Bionys. Per leg. 143. 

2 Hesych. Miles. 27, 28. 



THE SIEGE RAISED 115 

ships of the Chians and Rhoclians, and it was 
reported that a fresh Persian force had been thrown 
into Thrace. 1 All Hellas seemed to be arming, and it 
was high time to go. The Macedonian fleet seems to 
have been blocked in the Black Sea by the Athenians 
who held the Bosphorns. Philip is said to have 
written a fictitious letter to Antipater in Macedonia, 
saying that Thrace had risen and his case was 
desperate. It was contrived that this should fall 
into the hands of Phocion, who withdrew to the 
Chersonese, leaving the strait open. The next 
problem was how to pass the Dardanelles, now closed 
by an allied squadron, but Philip, making preliminary 
proposals of peace, threw the enemy off his guard, 
and once more saved the most of his fleet. 2 His land 
forces were drawn off, the Chersonese was evacuated, 
and the Macedonian retired to ruminate on the most 
signal reverse that he had experienced in twenty 
years. 

To Byzantium and the satraps he proposed peace ; 
with Athens he persisted in not accepting war ; and 
he proceeded to spend the rest of the year as far 
from Greece as might be, in prosecuting a raid up to 
the distant region where reigned Ateas the Scythian. 3 
Partly, perhaps, he wished to remove from his 
soldiers' minds the memory of failure ; partly he 
desired plunder ; partly too he had a personal score 

1 Arr. ii. 14. Cf. Dem. ad Ep. Phil. 5. 

2 Frontin. i. 4. 10. Cf. Plut. Phoc. 14, for the loss of some 
Macedonian vessels. 

8 Strabo, p. 307; Justin, ix. 2. 



116 PHILIP 

to pay, for this Ateas a year before had invited his 
help against the Istrians, making offer even to the 
succession of his kingdom. Philip in response had 
detached a force, but Ateas' danger was passed before 
the Macedonians arrived, and he dismissed them 
scornfully with neither pay nor rations, excusing 
himself on the score of the leanness of his land. 
Therefore Philip was moving northward now, amusing 
himself by sending on messages in his own grim vein 
of irony. He had pledged himself, he said, during 
the siege of Byzantium, to set up a statue to 
Heracles at the Danube mouth. " Then," replied the 
Scythian, " send the statue to me." " But it must 
be guaranteed inviolable," said the Macedonian, and 
marched on. " If thou settest it up against my will," 
retorted Ateas, " it shall be overthrown and melted 
down for arrow-heads." For which reply the Scy- 
thian paid with twenty thousand of his women and 
boys, flocks and herds, and twenty thousand mares, 
taken by the victor to multiply on the Emathian 
plains. But in the Balkans the Triballian tribesmen 
fell on the retiring column, and having chanced to 
wound Philip sorely in the thigh, succeeded in driving 
off amid the confusion much of the spoil. And the 
khw returned to Pella as winter drew on, with 
mortification threatening his leg to add to the many 
afflictions — the broken collar bone, the blinded eye, 
the gangrened arm — that he had endured already in 
the chase of glory. 

This year, 339, claims a peculiar place in universal 



ALEXANDER 117 

history, as that in which the figure of the great 
Alexander appears first upon its stage. He had 
received his baptism of blood, if we may believe 
Justin, 1 before the walls of Perinthus, and now being 
turned sixteen, he was sent back to take the seals of 
Regency from Antipater. And in such capacity it 
fell to him to do three things of which tradition 2 
took note — to lead his first army against an Illyrian 
rising, to found his first city, 3 and to receive a party 
of envoys sent by the Great King of Persia, 4 doubtless 
in response to Philip's proposal of peace. The 
retailers of anecdote loved to record that the invader- 
to-be gravely and narrowly questioned the Asiatics 
on roads and marches, and the strength of the Great 
King's armies, to their no small wonder. •• Nor is it 
altogether incredible that even at sixteen Alexander 
had a definite ambition of Asiatic conquest, which 
issued in a little envy of his father, as Plutarch states. 
His later career, at least, shows him a miracle of pre- 
cocious development, destroyer of Thebes at twenty- 
one, master of Babylon at twenty-five, dying worn 
and aged at thirty-three with the world at his feet. 
The blood of Philip flowed in his veins, mixed with 
the strain of that savage witch, whom alone he feared 

1 ix. 1. But Justin states his age wrongly. He was barely 
sixteen. 

2 Cf. Ps. Callisth. i. 23. 

3 Curt. viii. 1 ; Pint. Alex. 9 ; cf. Steph. Byz., whose third 
Alexandria (©paK^s) this is. It was among the tribe of Mardi, 
i.e. in the upper Strymon valley. Nothing certain is known as 
to its precise representative in modern times. 

4 Plut. Alex. 5. 



118 PHILIP 

in later days and his successors feared after him ; he 
was bred in the boisterous court of Pella, his father 
being always at the wars, and himself with his 
singular beauty the centre of feudal idolatry : was 
he not bound to become very early headstrong, self- 
assured, self-centred ? 

The famous story of his boyhood, how he mastered 
and rode the wild horse Bucephalus, is worth repeat- 
ing from Plutarch, for the picture it affords of father 
and son at this time. A Thessalian appeared at the 
court of Pella offering to sell for thirteen talents a 
magnificent horse. Philip coveted the beast, and, 
with his son, his courtiers, and his grooms, went 
down in the evening into the plain below the city 
to try him : but he could not be mounted, hardly 
handled even, and at last the king, disgusted with 
his fractiousness, ordered the vendor to lead him 
away. Upon this the young prince, who had been 
watching the trials with a fine scorn, interposed with 
broad hints, which Philip for some time ignored, 
annoyed with his forwardness, but was forced at last 
to reprove, telling the speaker sharply not to set 
himself up against his elders. The boy, however, was 
not abashed, but offered to stake the price of the 
horse on the trial. Without more ado he wheeled 
the wild beast's head to the sun, having noted that 
he was shying at his own shadow. Then, having led 
him a little about the meadow, soothing and stroking 
him, he slipped stealthily his upper garment and 
vaulted gently on Bucephalus' back. The horse 
started, but Alexander sat quiet, feeling his mouth, 



THE HERALD FROM DELPHI 119 

and presently put him into a gentle canter, increasing 
the pace gradually with voice and heel until he was 
heading into the open country at full speed. The 
gallop was soon over. No southern horse ever lasts 
fully extended, and it was a very tame Bucephalus 
that the prince rode back at last triumphant into the 
meadow. The crowd cheered ; the king, overwrought 
by his excitement and fears, fell weeping, and kissed 
Alexander on the forehead, crying, " Boy, find thee 
a kingdom for thyself, for Macedonia is too strait 
for thee and me ! " 

Plutarch says, no doubt truly, that it was on 
account of this early development of a temper to be 
governed only by a precocious reason, that Philip sent 
now for the great Aristotle from Atarneus to take in 
hand the boy of fifteen, making thereby a conjunction 
of immortal names which has set rhetoricians vapour- 
ing, fabulists romancing, and poets singing ever since. 

Through the winter Philip nursed his wound until, 
big with fate, the spring of 338 came in. Early in 
March a herald came to Pella bearing a request from 
the Holy Synod of the Amphictyons, that the king 
would be pleased to use his army to coerce on their 
behalf a contumacious town near Delphi. Philip 
needed little pressing ; it was always to his mind to 
head a Hellenic league ; he had work of his own to 
do in Greece, and the memory of Perinthus and 
Byzantium to efface. The word went through his 
camp for active service, and that with all speed. 

The appearance of this herald was so opportune, and 



120 PHILIP 

the sequel of his message so momentous, that many 
historians have credited Philip with having invited 
his invitation. Admitted that habitually the Mace- 
donian left little to chance ; admitted that the artifice 
was quite in his vein; admitted that two-thirds of 
the Holy Synod were his dependents ; admitted that, 
having done much violence to Hellenic feeling on the 
Propontis, and proposed lately a general peace, he may 
have thought it expedient not to move south without 
the sanction of a formal invitation, master of the 
Gates and lord of many battalions though he was — all 
these things being admitted, nevertheless, neither does 
any ancient authority state that he had foreknowledge 
of the herald's coming, nor do the antecedent facts 
point that way. The Amphictyonic quarrel, which 
resulted in Philip being invited, and need be noticed 
only in so far as it bears on him, had been on foot 
for at least a year ; and it is not to be disputed that 
great efforts had been made by the Holy Synod to 
settle it without calling in the Macedonian. He was 
invited only in the last resort, the Thebans being 
friends of the guilty Amphissa, the Athenians having 
decreed the withdrawal of their forces from the 
venture, and the Amphictyonic condottiere having 
been handled severely when the greater states ceased 
to support him. It is quite possible that Philip 
long had contemplated an expedition to the south ; 
but as he kept his own conscience, no one in 
Greece probably knew the fact then, and no one can 
prove it now. In any case, it seems distinctly not 
proven that either himself or his paid agents cooked 



PHILIP ACCEPTS THE CALL 121 

up the Amphissian quarrel, or led it to an issue 
favourable to his own ambition. It is generally more 
true that a great man uses than that he makes his 
opportunities. 

Thessaly was Philip's own, and Thermopylae was 
held by his garrison. Without let or hindrance, 
therefore, his army marched south to Nicaea in May. 
Here was the situation. The object of his march 
was Amphissa, a town of sturdy mountaineers, north- 
west of Delphi. The Amphissians had been called 
to account in one of those superstitious panics, 
which, like the excitement after the affair of the 
Hermae at Athens, proceed from the most primitive 
motives, and require no subtle explanation ; in brief, 
it was demanded of these mountaineers that they 
should desist from an old standing occupation of 
certain sacred domain land of Apollo. But they had 
declined to obey the Holy Synod, and for a year 
had resisted its resort to force. To arrive within 
striking distance of them, Philip must lead his army 
round the end of Oeta into Phocis and the basin 
of the Cephissus and, when he should turn up into 
the defiles of Parnassus, he would leave on his left 
flank Thebes, which had supported Amphissa all 
through its revolt, and was strong enough to cut 
his communications with Thermopylae. The hostility 
to himself in Greece was now, as he well knew, 
greater than in 34.6, and since his failure on the 
Bosphorus, the fear was less. 

His first measures, therefore, were directed to the 
safeguarding of his flank and communications. The 



122 PHILIP 

Theban garrison, to which he had handed Nicaea 
eight years before/ was bidden retire, and Philip 
established Thessalians to guard in their place the 
southern mouth of the Pass. 2 Then, pursuing his 
way into Phocis, he reached the ruins of Elatea, where 
his path towards Ainphissa forked west from the 
great south road which traversed the Copaic plain to 
Thebes. Since 346 the site had been untenanted, for 
Elatea was one of the towns whose inhabitants had 
been punished in that year by being distributed into 
villages. Here Philip called a halt, and prepared to 
establish a fortified camp. At the same time he 
seems to have sent an embassy southwards to Thebes, 
to persuade the city to detach itself from Amphissa 
and act with himself. 

Here is an event which has been misrepresented 
both in ancient and modern times, perhaps more than 
anything in history. The fortification of Elatea by 
Philip was manifestly the reasonable precaution of a 
prudent general. If it menaced any city, that city 
was Thebes. The site of Elatea lies more than sixty 
miles by any practicable road from the nearest point 
of the Attic frontier, and at least ninety from Athens. 
The whole Copaic plain, the Theban territory, and the 
range of Cithaeron intervene. There was absolutely 
no ground, in 338, except Demosthenes' unsupported 
word, for the belief that Philip was entrenching 
Elatea as a menace to Athens. There is absolutely 
no other ground for the same belief being held now. 
But in spite of the geographical absurdity, in spite 

1 Dem. ad Phil. ep. 4. 2 Aescli. Ctes. 140. 



FORTIFICATION OF ELATEA 123 

of the positive denial given by Philip's subsequent 
action, the suggestion, for which a great orator in 
the interests of a policy succeeded in obtaining 
credence two thousand years ago, has been accepted 
absolutely ever since ! 

Word came to Athens one day towards sundown, 
that Philip was fortifying Elatea. The news caused 
great excitement, for the city considered herself at 
this particular moment to be still at war with the 
Macedonian, and always was agitated by the passing 
of Thermopylae. Furthermore, with the self-con- 
scious vanity of a great people, the Athenian, like 
the Briton, habitually relates to himself every event 
that happens in his world. Doubtless on that spring 
evening, season of chatter and intercourse in all the 
East, there was much discussion of the news, and 
an Assembly was summoned for next morning at 
sunrise, no abnormal hour at shadeless Athens in 
April. Here, however, was an obvious opportunity 
for the War Party. Thebes, hostile to Philip's errand 
in any case, having taken already the same side in 
the matter of Amphissa as Athens, might reasonably 
be expected to regard a fortified Elatea as a menace, 
and to ally herself with Athens ; and with her help 
Ministers could hope reasonably for a vigorous prose- 
cution of their policy, and a prosperous issue, the great 
success of the previous year at Byzantium being con- 
sidered. Philip once beaten decisively, the restoration 
of the Athenian Empire would follow in due course. 

There was no vote needed for war, for war had 
been the city's nominal relation to Philip these two 



124 PHILIP 

years past ; but in the interests of vigorous action by 
land, and of alliance with the unpopular Thebans, it 
was necessary to arouse the citizens to a sense of private 
peril. Demosthenes undertook this task, and with all 
his eloquence coloured Philip's design, declared Elatea 
to be but a stage on the road to Attica, and pointed 
out the nakedness of the frontier should the Thebans 
take sides with the Macedonian. The case seemed 
clear as daylight; the citizens shouted for action; 
and while the levies were being called out, Demos- 
thenes himself undertook to conduct an embassy to 
Thebes and sue for the Theban alliance. 

In the Cadmeian city he found Philip's envoys, 1 
newly come from Elatea. For what passed then and 
there we have the worst authority in the world, the 
statements of two contradictory pamphleteers, who 
published years afterwards, in the guise of orations, 
apologies for their own conduct in this matter. 
Demosthenes 2 is the less precise ; he relates that the 
Thebans first heard Philip's legates and their urgent 
request that Thebes would join their master in war 
on Athens, or at least give him passage to Attica ; 
but the effect so produced was swept away from the 
Boeotarchs' mind as soon as himself, Demosthenes, 
appeared. Aeschines 3 says that at the first audience 
Demosthenes was received coldly, and the Boeotarchs 

1 Marsyas, fr. ap. Pint., Bern. 18. 

2 Be Cor. 211 if. 

3 Ctes. 149 ff. There is a doubt whether his description 
really refers to this first embassy of Demosthenes to Thebes, or 
to another just before Chaeronea. On the whole, I adhere to the 
view in the text. 



THEBES AND ATHENS ALLIED 125 

sent notice to the Athenian force, already on the 
move, not to enter Theban territory. Demosthenes, 
however, at a second audience demanded if not 
alliance, at least free passage for the Athenian army ; 
and, at last, by persistent working on the fears of 
the Thebans, and promising that his own city should 
take only second place in the field and pay two- 
thirds of the cost of the war, the orator persuaded 
the Boeotarchs to swear alliance. 

The end at least is certain. Thebes concluded a 
league for offence and defence with Athens, and 
received the forces of the latter within her walls ; and 
the two took the field against Philip with a larger 
and a finer army than had been drawn from Greek 
cities for many a year. The larger Peloponnesian 
states, threatened or cajoled by Philip, 1 stood aloof, 
waiting the event, Arcadia, perhaps, as Aeschines said 
afterwards, only for want of funds ; 2 but certain of 
the smaller, Achaea, Corinth, and Megara, with the 
islands of Corey ra, Leucas, and Euboea, joined the 
allies ; and Byzantium promised to see to the safety 
of the corn ships. 

One point only in these preliminary matters calls 
for more remark. Demosthenes states, and he alone, 
that Philip declared through his envoys from Elatea 
that his march was directed against Athens. When 
his entire abstention from any forward movement 
towards Attica, and his refusal to violate a foot 
of Athenian territory after Chaeronea, are recalled, 
it seems most improbable that his private purpose 
1 Cor. 218. 2 Ctes. 240. Cf. Paus. viii. 27. 10. 



126 PHILIP 

was ever anything of the kind ; but that he should 
have said so to the Thebans is far from dissonant 
with his character, or with the usual methods of 
diplomacy ; and that his envoys, confronted with 
Demosthenes, bid against the latter on the spur of 
the moment with such a statement is most credible. 
The fact itself, indeed, is more worthy of credit than 
the authority for it. 

Word of the new alliance was brought to Elatea 
by the returning envoys. Philip indited a letter of 
bitter reproach to the Athenians, and anxious missives 
of encouragement to the Peloponnese, but proceeded 
none the less on his road to Amphissa. 1 The allies, 
if we are to believe Polyaenus, 2 threw a force into the 
passes of Parnassus, but by his old device of leaving 
a sham despatch in the enemy's path, the Macedonian 
got through. Amphissa had been reinforced strongly 
by Athenian hired troops, 3 and a desultory campaign 
seems to have been waged for some weeks on the 
slopes above the Corinthian Gulf 4 and the hills 
bordering Boeotia. The allies gained two small 
successes, 5 of which they made the most, but by 

1 Plutarch. (Bern. 18) inverts the order of these events; but I 
agree with Holm and Hoffman (schol. Dem. ii. 5, 44) in dis- 
regarding his sequence. 

2 iv. 2, 8. 

8 Aesch. Cles. 146. 

4 The surprise of Naupactus (Theopomp. fr. 46) seems to 
belong to this war. 

6 One of these skirmishes is alluded to by Demosthenes (who 
alone has recorded them) as -f] x €L f jLe P LV V (C° r - 216). This term 
must mean the " Battle of the Storm ; " but the translation of it 
as "Battle of the Winter" has led to the absurd supposition that 



BATTLE OF CHAERONEA 127 

August they had fallen back on the great south road, 
and concentrated all their forces at the crossing of the 
Cephissus in the plain before Chaeronea. 

On the 7th of the Athenian month Metageitnion — 
in early August or early September (how Meta- 
geitnion fell in 338 is doubtful) — one of the decisive 
issues of the world's history was fought out. On the 
one side stood the miscellaneous array, half mercenary, 
half civic, of the last imperial Greek city-states ; on 
the other was ranged the first great army of a 
national power. Tried by any standard, Chaeronea 
ranks as a great battle. The Macedonian came 
down from Elatea with thirty thousand of the best 
infantry, and two thousand of the best cavalry in 
the world. The allied army is stated variously to 
have been more and less than his, 1 and probably was 
about equal in numbers. 2 The Theban horse and 
light troops, if we may judge from their condition 
three years later, 3 ranked hardly inferior to the Mace- 
donian ; but the Greek army was hampered by a dual 
command, Theban and Athenian, and we gather that 
it was not too harmonious in face of the foe; for 

Philip spent a whole winter, spring, and most of a summer, ranging 
about Amphissa, and to a general distortion of the chronology, 
340-338. Grote, for instance, tries to include the end of the 
siege of Byzantium, a last campaign in the Chersonese, the march 
up to Scythia, the return through the Triballian country, the 
march through the Gates, the fortification of Elatea, and the 
marshalling of the allies, all in the one year 339 ! 

1 Cf. Diod. xvi. 85, with Justin, ix. 3. 

2 We gather from Aeseh. Ctes. 146, that the larger part of the 
Athenian mercenary force was shut up still in Amphissa. 

3 Arr. i. 7. 



128 PHILIP 

there were some who would have fallen in with 
Philip's proffered terms rather than fight. The 
gods were not for the Greeks; portents and in- 
auspicious omens ushered in the fatal morning. 

We know too little, alas ! of what happened on 
that memorable summer day, to fight the battle o'er 
again. No surviving author of antiquity has described 
it. By inference only can we set out even the 
skeleton of the battle array : on the Macedonian 
side, the Thessalian and allied cavalry to the right ; 
in the centre the phalanx, mercenaries to right, 
Macedonians to left, behind a bristling hedge of 
spear points ; on the left probably the Guards and 
Philip himself; and, flanking these and the whole 
array, the matchless feudal " Companion " cavalry, led 
to-day by no less a captain than Alexander. In the 
adverse array, facing the Companions and the Mace- 
donian left centre, was the Theban phalanx, with 
the Sacred Band in its centre front ; on the left 
ranked the Athenian brigades and mercenaries, and 
the Achaean 1 and other allies, probably out-flanking 
Philip's right. On either wing, and ranging before 
the battle-line in the faulty Greek manner, were 
targeteers and cavalry, the last used only to skirmish 
and pursue. 

Allusions and anecdotes which survive imply that 
the fight was stubborn and long drawn out, Philip 
keeping back his decisive charge until the unseasoned 
levies opposed to him should begin to tire. 2 The 

1 Paus. vii. 6. 5. 

2 Polyaen. iv. 2. 7 ; Frontin. ii. 19. 



DEFEAT OF THE ALLIES 129 

heavy Theban phalanx wore itself out slowly against 
the mobile veteran formation of Macedonian spear- 
men ; the Athenians with better fortune broke the 
allies and mercenaries on Philip's left, and rushed on, 
shoutino: " To Macedonia ! " " These men know 
little of winning ! " grimly remarked the king, and 
threw his phalanx into the fatal gap which now 
had opened x between Athenians and Thebans. It 
seems that the latter proved the harder to break, 
and gave way only to Philip's heaviest blow — a flank 
charge by the Companion's, led by Alexander ; 2 but 
not before there had been one perilous moment when 
Philip, owing, it is said, to a sudden quarrel in 
his own phalanx between the Macedonian and the 
mercenary spearmen, the former perhaps jeering at 
the latter for having been broken by the Athenian 
onset, was struck down and hardly saved by his 
son. For which service, 3 and for such credit as he 
claimed for the charge which decided that day, 
Alexander was never forgiven wholly by his father. 
It was the end. The Greek line gave way along 
its whole length, the Theban leader fell, the Sacred 
Band died in its ranks, lovers and loved, the 
Athenians ran, Demosthenes with the rest, and the 
supreme effort of Greece was spent. 

The Athenians lost three thousand men, killed or 
taken ; the Thebans mourned their general, and pro- 
bably not less of the rank and file than their allies. 
Pursuit seems not to have been pressed far, for it 

1 Polyaen. iv. 2. 2. 2 Plut. Alex. 9. 3 Curt. viii. 1, 23, 24. 



130 PHILIP 

was from Lebadea 1 that heralds came the same 
evening to supplicate the victor to give up the 
dead. There is a tale, strangely characteristic of 
Philip, told by more than one authority 2 about this 
night at Chaeronea. The suppliant heralds were 
bidden to wait — one authority says their request 
was refused — and Philip himself made meanwhile 
a great feast with his captains. It was such an 
orgy as his soul delighted in, with many a light o' 
love, and music and dancing ; and in the grey dawn 
he reeled out mad drunk through his camp and on 
to the corpse-strewn field, shouting songs of tipsy 
triumph, and jeering at the Athenians and their 
runaway Demosthenes. But among his huddling 
prisoners stood forth an Athenian orator, one 
Demades, a man of incisive speech, as many anec- 
dotes attest, and he faced Philip unabashed, " King, 
when Fate has cast thee for Agamemnon, art not 
ashamed to play Thersites ? " And something 
in the gibe, perhaps because it reminded him 
of that world of culture to which he had bid so 
long and so doubtfully for acceptance, some dim 
conviction of a shameful inferiority, penetrated 
to the fuddled sense of Philip. The impetuous 
captain tore off his garlands and trod them under- 
foot with the winecups and flutes and licentious 
emblems of his crew, and ordering Demades to be 
loosed, went away humbled and ashamed. 

1 Plut. Fit. x. Orat. p. 849. 

2 Cf. Theopomp. fr. 262, with Diod. xvi. 87, Plut. Bern. 20, 
and Sext. Empir. Adv. Gram. p. 281. 



TREATMENT OF THEBES 131 

Certainly afterwards he comported himself towards 
one part of his beaten foes with a forbearing and, 
as it were, an apologetic temper * that is all the more 
conspicuous by contrast with the measure that he 
meted out to Thebes. That city, into which the 
Macedonians presently marched, was made to feel 
all the bitterness of defeat. Her headship of the 
Boeotian towns was stripped from her for ever, and 
Orchomenus and Plataea were encouraged to rise 
again on the north and the south. 2 And not only 
this, but her own civic autonomy was destroyed, her 
leaders being proscribed or banished, and their lands 
seized for the king; and, while a Macedonian 
garrison was installed in the Cadmeia, 3 a body of 
three hundred men, formerly exiled for adherence 
to Macedonian interests, was put in office in the 
lower city to work their will on the lives and goods 
of the citizens. 4 Thus did Philip remove the last 
obstacle to his sway in northern Hellas, paying the 
city which had taught him war and cost him most 
the rude compliment of a treatment more brutal than 
any great state of Greece had experienced since the 
Persian War. 

But to Athens, his consistent foe, who now was 
cowering desperately behind her walls newly repaired 
with gravestones and the trunks of trees — to Athens, 
who had proposed even to enfranchise her aliens and 
free her slaves, and had sent round to the remnant of 

1 Cf. Justin, ix. 4 ; Diod. xvi. 87 ; Polvb. v. 10, xvii. 14. 

2 Paus. ix. 1. 8, 37, 8. 

3 Paus. ix. 1. 8 ; and Arr. i. 7. 4 Cf. Justin, ix. 4. 



132 PHILIP 

her allies to beg men and money for a last stand, 
he " behaved so in victory that none might feel 
him victor." * Not only did he restore freely the 
Athenian dead — he had made the Thebans pay a 
ransom — but all his two thousand Athenian prisoners. 
Furthermore, he sent back Aeschines 2 and other 
envoys who had come to him, and with them 
Demades, to assure the terrified citizens not only of 
peace but his alliance, and he gave withal a signal 
pledge of good faith by allotting to the Republic of 
the spoil of Thebes the oft-disputed border town, 
Oropus. No Macedonian soldier was permitted to 
violate Attic soil, but in order to ratify the peace, 
Philip sent to Athens personages no less than Anti- 
pater, his Regent, and his own famous son, who saw 
then, for the first time so far as we know, those most 
glorious works of a civilization which it was to be 
given to him, more than to any Athenian, to spread 
to the ends of the earth. 

It was an extraordinary attitude for the master 
of irresistible legions to assume in the moment of 
decisive victory. From a military point of view 
Philip had nothing to fear, and next to nothing to 
gain, from Athens. The Republic had now no 
allies worth mentioning that had not been crushed 
equally with herself at Chaeronea, except the Pro- 
pontic cities, with whom her tie of friendship was 
very loose. She had ships, but never could com- 
mission two large fleets at a time ; and her army had 
almost ceased to exist. A few triremes and a small 
1 Justin, I.e. 2 Dem. de Cor. 282. 



TREATMENT OF ATHENS 133 

force of cavalry were all Philip could expect her to 
contribute to the alliance with himself. 1 Demos- 
thenes, after abandoning the idea of a last desperate 
struggle behind the walls, to furthering which he 
had given his voice, his money, and his official ser- 
vice, never credited his city with any further power 
of resistance. In his funeral oration over the dead 
of Chaeronea, 2 and in his continued capacity as 
Minister, 3 he contented himself with mourning over 
lost greatness, and with devoting his energies to 
lightening the public poverty. 4 

Philip's attitude, however, was no other than 
the logical consequence of all his previous conduct 
towards the Athenian city. While he could not 
brook her rival empire, 5 he hankered after her 
approval of his own, and confessed an inferiority 
which no arms could adjust. And now that she was 
at his feet, he could confer so great a favour that — 
man of no delicate susceptibilities as he was — he 
thought she might be won. Needless to say, he only 
seemed to succeed. Her adhesion to his panhellenic 
League against the Persian was only compelled, as 
not he, but his son lived to know. But nevertheless 
in spite of his failure, there must be conceded to him 
a certain enlightenment in the conception of this 
policy, and a certain rude nobility in the execution ; 
and, at the least, Philip may claim to rank with 

1 Plut. Fhoc. 17. 

2 See Cor. 285-288; Aesch. Ctes. 152 ; Plut. Bern. 21. 

3 Plut. Bern. I.e. 4 Aesch. Ctes. 159. 
5 Cf. Paus. i. 25. 3. 



134 PHILIP 

Sulla, who like him warred on Athens, and like 
him spared her when at his mercy in hope to 
find grace in her eyes, regarding not her weakness, 
but " the weight and repute " 1 that once had 
been hers. 

The twelvemonth after Chaeronea was spent by the 
Macedonian King in smoothing the last obstacles in 
his way to what had been growing during the past 
decade to be the crowning ambition of his life. He 
was become at last lord of the Hellenes de facto ; he 
would be acknowledged Captain-General of Hellenism 
de jure. Now that Thebes was crushed and Athens 
bound by treaty, there was no doubt of his being 
acknowledged Captain, except by the Peloponnesian 
states, which had been neither for him nor against 
him at Chaeronea. So, having secured Corinth, he 
displayed his spearmen in the spring and summer of 
337 within the Isthmus. The most part of the states 
bowed low : Elis, a friend of old, added a new monu- 
ment to the Altis, the round Philippeion, and set up 
therein chryselephantine statues of the conqueror, his 
progenitors, and his kin — the first of many Mace- 
donian effigies destined soon to stand in Athens and 
Olympia ; 2 but Sparta, a little exalted perhaps in the 
day of her hereditary foe's humiliation, would have 
none of the new Crusade. Philip had to make a 
demonstration in the Eurotus valley, in the course of 
which a party of his men were handled roughly near 

1 Diod. xvi. 8. 

2 See Paus. v. 20. 10; i. 9. 4 ; vi. 11. 1. 



CAPTAIN GENERAL OF HELLAS 135 

Gythium ; l but raid her fields and sack her towns as 
he might, Sparta would not acknowledge him. To 
his demand for Laconian citizenship, she retorted 
quite in her old manner, that at least he could not 
prevent the Spartans dying for their country ; 2 and 
Philip was fain at last to content himself with cutting 
her territory down to the point at which she would 
become innocuous, but beyond which he might have 
outraged Hellenic sentiment, and with obtaining his 
recognition by the states of Hellas with one dis- 
sentient voice. 

His ambition was satisfied formally about a twelve- 
month after Chaeronea. Delegates from all the states, 
except Sparta, came to meet him at the Isthmus. 
We do not know what arguments he may have 
proffered at the Congress; we hear that he spoke 
at length about the Crusade against the Persian, 
and aroused some expression of enthusiasm, to which 
doubtless the presence of his army without the walls 
lent a certain warmth. No one in those latter 
days felt strongly on the Panhellenic Question, or 
was bitter against the Great King of Susa, whose 
dairies alone, not his men-at-arms, were to be ex- 
pected in Europe ; but many of the Greeks, doubtless, 
were not averse to the restless Macedonian departing 
for Asia. From one motive or another the delegates 
were content to acclaim Philip Captain-General, and 
to promise the spearmen, cavalry, and ships which he 
asked each state to provide, that his venture might 

1 Frontin. iv. 5. 12. 

2 Paus. iii. 24. 6 ; v. 4. 9. 



136 PHILIP 

assume a panhellenic character. If their fellow- 
citizens grumbled privately, the returned delegates 
reminded them that they could hardly have done 
less for the master of so many legions. To Philip 
it mattered little if the panhellenic movement was 
factitious now ; a successful campaign in Asia would 
go far to give it reality, and common danger and 
common triumph would unite his Macedonians and 
their Greek allies. In 337 he had probably no such 
Asiatic Empire in view, as that which later his son 
conceived ; he was possessed rather with an idea of 
nation-making at home, to which end the mere 
warring with a common enemy would conduce more 
than the sack of the latter's towns, or the loot of 
his camps. 

The word given for a twelvemonth from that 
time, Philip left Greece, well pleased to gather up 
his forces for the great adventure which should 
crown all previous successes, and set the seal on 
his nation and his fame. He had a great army to 
equip and supply, and all that winter the arsenal 
of Pella 1 must have rung to the sound of his 
arming. By the spring of 336 his host was ready, 
and making two divisions, he despatched the lesser 
in advance under Parmenio, with Amyntas and 
Attalus for lieutenant-generals, to hold the passage 
of the Dardanelles, and secure the Greek cities on 
the farther shore against his own coming with the 
second division and the allied army of Greeks. The 
total of the Grand Army we do not know. Justin 
1 Cf. Strabo, p. 752; Livy, xlii. 51. 



PHILIP AND HIS HOUSE 137 

gives an absurd aggregate of two hundred thousand 
foot and fifteen thousand horse for the Greek con- 
tingent alone. Alexander, however, began his venture 
two years later with not more than forty thousand 
men ; and at no higher figure is it probable that 
Philip's national Macedonian force should be estimated. 
But there remains to be added the auxiliary host of 
Greeks, who would have been used rather to garrison 
towns and keep open communications than to accom- 
pany the seasoned troops into the heart of the 
Persian Empire. 

Philip put off his own march to the autumn, for 
he had his house to set in order. His family affairs 
had been going ill these two years past. Himself 
being always in the field, 1 and consorting now with 
this woman, now with that, 2 it is small wonder if 
his Jezebel of a Queen did not keep in the paths of 
strict virtue. A votary of the Cabiric mysteries 
before marriage was open to more than suspicion, 
and Philip was rumoured always to have doubted 
his own paternity of Alexander. The legends of 
the serpent seen with Olympias, and the seal set 
thereafter on her womb ; her affectation of divine 
relations, 3 and that worldwide story of her seduction 
by an Egyptian astrologer, are so many popular 
improvements on the contemporary scandal which 
the Macedonian, Attalus, blurted when he prayed 

1 Cf. Ps. Callisth., i. 4. 

2 Aiet Kara ttoXcjxov eya/tei, says the contemporary Satyrus 
(fragm. ap. Athena, xiii. p. 557b). 

3 See Plut. Alex. 2, 3, etc. 



138 PHILIP 

tipsily for a legitimate heir to the throne of 
Philip, and received Alexander's drinking-cup in his 
face. 1 

The relations between father and son had long 
left much to be desired. Seeing, however, that 
Alexander was made Regent in 339, and led 
the Companions at Chaeronea in 338, we may 
infer that mutual jealousy had not led to an out- 
break before that battle. The open rupture came, 
it seems, in 337, after Philip's return from the 
Congress of Corinth. He had fallen in love with 
a Macedonian lady, 2 niece of his general Attalus ; 
and she, more ambitious than the dancing-girls 3 and 
the like who had yielded to the king's embraces, 
worked upon his growing distaste for his wife, until 
she induced him to prefer a definite charge of in- 
fidelity against Olympias and to wed herself. The 
Epirote, bidden, like a woman of the harem, to cover 
her face, departed raging to her brother, and presently 
her son came to an issue with his father. During 
the feast at the new nuptials, as a sequel to a brawl 
with Attalus, alluded to already, Philip drew his 
sword, and made for Alexander in drunken fury ; 
but stumbling over the fallen cups, he suffered him- 
self to be pacified by his officers, while Alexander, 
gibing at the man who would cross to Asia, but 
could not pass from couch to couch, betook himself 

1 Pint. Alex. 9. 

2 Cleopatra, accc to Plut. Alex. 9 ; Justin, ix. 7 ; Paus. 
viii. 77; Aelian, V. xiii. 36; Diod. xvi. 91. But Eurydice, 
Arr. iii. 6. 

3 E.g. the Larrissean who bore him Philip Arrhidaeus. 



ALEXANDER AND HIS FATHER 139 

to Epirus, and having seen his mother safe, . went 
up into Lyncestis. 1 

Philip, however, coming to himself, invited his son 
to return ; but presently he fell out with the youth 
again, not this time for a fault, but through a mis- 
understanding. For it seems that Pixodarus, satrap 
of Caria, wishing to stand well with the coming 
invader, sent to negotiate a marriage between his 
eldest daughter and a natural son of Philip, Arrhi- 
daeus, begotten of a Thessalian dancing-girl. Upon 
this Olympias, convinced that by hook or by crook her 
own boy was to be robbed of his succession to the 
throne, had Alexander persuaded that this was too 
brilliant a match for his bastard half-brother ; for 
the Carian satrap was at that time the wealthiest of 
princes, and almost a king in his own right. Accord- 
ingly Alexander despatched a Corinthian friend to 
Caria, to tell the satrap that he, the legitimate heir, 
was willing ; whereat the Carian, who had not dared 
to look so high, was mightily gratified. But Philip, 
hearing of the plot, took one of Alexander's intimates 
aside, when the boy himself was out of the way, 
and expressed his high displeasure that his heir 
should have deigned to propose alliance with a 
Carian subject of the Persian King, and a barbarian 
to boot. And he followed up his reproof with strin- 
gent punishment of the Corinthian- go-between, and 
decrees of exile against four intirr ;es of his son, 
who, he believed, were suborn oy Olympias to 

1 Plut. Alex. 9. The Romance ( K «Jallisth. i. 21) has a 
picturesque exaggeration of this historical scene. 



140 PHILIP 

poison the mind of the boy. 1 Among these last were 
some marked for fame in different ways : Harpalus, 
who would rebel against and rob Alexander at Baby- 
lon ; and Ptolemy, destined to be the historian of the 
Conquest of Asia, and himself a king. 

Such was not a state of affairs that Philip cared to 
leave in and about Macedonia on the eve of a loner 
absence, and he proposed therefore to render harmless 
his divorced queen by detaching her powerful brother. 
Accordingly he offered to the latter a formal recon- 
ciliation and the hand of Alexander's sister. The 
overture was accepted, and Philip determined to make 
of the wedding a magnificent demonstration of the 
unity of his panhellenic Empire. In pressing terms 
he invited representatives of the states of Hellas and 
all notable Greeks to repair in the autumn to Aegae, 
the old capital of his kingdom. The great actors of 
Greece were invited to attend and perform the classic 
dramas ; games were projected on an Olympian scale, 
and shows and banquets ordered, even to the entire 
depletion of the royal exchequer. No matter ! Was 
not all the gold of Asia about to flow into the coffers 
of Macedon ? 

A few days 2 before the opening of the festival, the 
new queen was delivered of a boy. Here at last was 
an heir of undoubted legitimacy. We are not told 
that Philip ever proposed actually to dispossess 
Alexander in favour of the little Caranus, as the 
baby was named ; but Olympias, watching from 
among the Lyncestians, jumped to a conclusion, 
1 Arr. iii. 6, and Plut. Alex. 10. 2 Diod. xvii. 2. 



THE MARRIAGE FESTIVAL 141 

and warning her adherents of Alexander's peril, coun- 
selled speedy action of the most desperate kind. 
Whether she admitted her son to the plot or no the 
world has never agreed, and probably never will agree. 
The measures that Alexander took afterwards, and 
the terms in which he spoke of his father, tell neither 
for nor against his guilt. That subsequently he should 
have put out of the way not only the accomplices of 
his father's assassin, but also his own rivals, the baby 
Caranus, and the queen's uncle and brother, is only 
what an oriental monarch does as matter of course. 
But we are bound to remember how little love was 
lost between father and son, and how much Alexander 
desired that Asia should be left for himself to 
conquer. 1 

The great day of the marriage feast arrived. A vast 
crowd of sight-seers had thronged into the theatre 
before daybreak, 2 and at sunrise a procession entered 
with superb effigies of the twelve Olympian gods, 
and of Philip himself, thirteenth. Men recalled 
afterwards that this public apotheosis was itself the 
most signal of omens, and interpreted too late a 
cloud of portents, how the prophetess of Delphi had 
replied to Philip's demand for an auspicious oracle 
ere he should attack Persia, with a vague hexameter, 
which signifies, being interpreted, — " The bull is 
garlanded ; his end draws on ; the sacrificer stands 
ready." 3 Again, had not the Athenian herald, 
offering a crown of honour the day before, stated 
solemnly that his city would give up to justice any 
1 Plut. Alex. 5. 2 Diod. xvi. 92. 8 Paus. viii. 7. 6. 



142 PHILIP 

man who attacked the king? and did not Neopto- 
lemus, the great Athenian player, recite at the royal 
banquet overnight an apostrophe to Death ? 

But no one that morning thought of oracles or 
omens, only of the king's entry, now at every moment 
expected. The royal procession approached at last, 
and halting a moment, Philip bade his nobles and high 
guests precede him, and his guards stand back, that 
he himself might be the more conspicuous entering 
the theatre in his white robe, hero acclaimed equally 
by Macedonians and by Greeks. The leaders entered 
the building ; the rearguard hung back obediently, 
and Philip stepped forward alone under the gateway. 
In that instant a man sprang from the lateral corri- 
dor, thrust a short Celtic blade between the ribs of 
the king, and rushed off as his victim fell. In the 
wild confusion that arose, the assassin came near 
getting clear away, for he had friends and swift 
horses ready ; but his sandal caught in a vine-stock, 
and pursuers were on him before he could rise. They 
pulled him to his feet, and pierced him through and 
through with their spears. 1 

Philip was found to be dead. Who was first cause 
of his murder, there is no doubt. Seek the woman, 
slighted, and cast off ! The assassin was a mere tool, 
one Pausanias, an Orestian favourite, ill-treated it 
seems by Philip, and unable to obtain redress for a 
degrading insult put upon him by the new queen's 
uncle, but not a man of such calibre as would 

1 Diod. xvi. 94. 



THE MURDER 143 

avenge himself unsupported. His hysterical, half- 
feminine rancour was remarked by the disaffected 
party, itself reinforced, for aught we know, by Greek 
sympathy or Persian gold, 1 and the Celtic sword was 
put by others into his hands. 

So perished the maker of Macedon, at a moment 
and in a manner which make his death the most 
dramatic in history. In the prime of his life — he 
was only forty-six — at the supreme crisis of his fame, 
on the eve of the greatest enterprise of arms the 
world had seen, he having steered the ship of his 
ambition through breakers and rocks to the open sea, 
— to fall at the whisper of a woman and by the hand 
of an androgyne ! 

For all that, it may be said of Philip that 
perhaps he died none too soon. The great work of 
his life was accomplished. Macedonia was already 
a nation, and, as Phocion warned the exulting 
Athenians, 2 by the death of its creator, the army of 
Chaeronea lost no more than one man. Further- 
more, the work which was to follow was not for 
Philip to do. The expansion of the Greeks into a 
new nationality, blending with and absorbing the 
barbarians around them, could be effected only by a 
leader of a personality more magnetic and a genius 
more universal than his ; and the conquest of Asia 
from the Hellespont to the Punjab would demand a 

1 Arr. ii. 14. 

2 Cf., for their attitude, Arr. i. 10; Aesch. Ctes. 77; Plut. 
Dem. 22. 



144 PHILIP 

master in civil organization as well as a master 
in war. 

For while the creative military genius of Philip 
ranks with the very first in the history of arms, and 
he added to his magnificent excellences of person a 
certain statesmanlike breadth and insight and fore" 
sight, which have been equalled seldom, he was in 
some respects not a great man of civic affairs. To the 
bitter end he understood but very imperfectly the arts 
of peace. He could conquer, but usually he was 
embarrassed by his conquest. Often in the record of 
his life we have to note that his work must be done 
twice, even thrice over. Thessaly, for example, was 
organized into due subjection only after years of 
desultory fighting and intriguing ; in Euboea Philip 
never wholly succeeded at all. There is a certain crude 
and tentative character about his dealings with the 
Greeks, and with Athens especially, which his son 
never would have displayed, never indeed did dis- 
play. Those all-powerful bonds of trade, that astute 
balancing of nationalities, that subtle use of religious 
influences, which made every province that Alexander 
left behind him as much his as if he had spent all 
his life in organizing it alone, — these things were 
hardly dreamed of by his father. Philip could have 
marched, no doubt, to the confines of India equally 
with his son, but all behind him would have been 
swelling up like the belly of that wineskin, on 
whose corner a Brahman trod to demonstrate to 
Alexander the futility of conquest. It was well for 
Philip, and it is very well for the world, that it was 



PHILIP AND HELLENISM 145 

not by him that the West was to be led against the 
East. " Europe had borne," indeed, " no such man, 
take him for all in all, as the son of Amyntas ; " 1 — 
until she bore Amyntas' grandson ! 

Of Philip's conscious constructive work in Macedon 
we have spoken already. History will never deny 
him the credit of having made there a Nation and a 
Power. But it were idle to ignore that posterity has 
always overbalanced its praise by bitter censure for 
what he did in Hellas. 

The interest of the modern world in Philip, and 
his place in universal history, depend after all most 
on his relation to Greek civilization. Therefore we 
must examine, in conclusion, the indictment so often 
repeated, that the Macedonian destroyed Hellenic 
liberty, and the measure of the wrong he did to 
civilization, if that indictment be true. And since 
Athens contained always the quintessence of Hel- 
lenism, and in this century had come to gather more 
and more to herself all great Hellenes, wheresoever 
born, let the inquiry be narrowed to her polity ; and 
the charge, on which Philip shall stand arraigned, will 
be this — that, Athens still possessing all the elements 
and conditions of vigorous life, with promises yet 
unredeemed, and much still to be developed in her 
for whose full flower mankind would have been the 
better, he, Philip, did so restrict her imperial scope, 
and oppress her liberal aspirations, as to cause grave 
hurt to civilization. The charge implies, it will be 

1 Theopomp. fr. 27 ; Suid. s.v. Trapd-rav. 
10 



146 PHILIP 

noted, two assertions of fact : first (which is matter 
of knowledge), that Athens was vigorous up to 
Philip's day ; second (which is matter rather of 
opinion), that the continued vigour of her civic life 
was still the most precious condition of human 
progress. 

The comparison of the life of states to the life 
of the individual is something more than a mere 
analogy. Organized in a polity, individuals have a 
corporate intellect and corporate emotions, corporate 
morality and corporate vices ; and, associated, they 
display a corporate development from youth to man- 
hood and manhood to age. The youth of the Athenian 
polity lies in the centuries before the Persian War. 
From that fiery trial the city emerged into manhood. 
Can it be that a century later she was falling already 
into sere senility ? 

The most ardent advocate of Athenian liberty 
has not denied that early in the fourth century the 
Athenian polity was showing signs of exhaustion. 
The slackness of its political life during that period 
is attested too well, and confessed too universally, to 
need demonstration. The orators have depicted for 
us even to satiety the figure of the too intellectual over- 
politicized Athenian, who is the later type of Demos. 
We know so familiarly that loafer in the market-place 
and on the hill of Assembly, averse equally to 
personal service and to direct taxation for the weal 
of his city ; who was little better than an out-pauper 
with his constant cry, panem ct circenses, having 
replaced the unreasoned belief of his forefathers that 



THE ATHENIAN DEMOS 147 

the individual exists for the state, by a reasoned 
conviction that the state exists to support and amuse 
the individual. That Ins city should have a circle 
of tributary dependencies whose contributions would 
pay for mercenaries to fight and row in his stead, 
for ships to secure his corn supply, 1 and for free 
shows in his theatre and his stadium, was a consum- 
mation which he contented himself with desiring 
devoutly. He would neither fight nor pay for its 
accomplishment, and with his idle criticism, his 
spoiled temper, his love of litigation, and his cease- 
less talk he so hampered his own executive 2 that it 
could carry out no imperial policy, and the few 
men of action left in the city hastened to reside 
beyond his reach. 3 

As a matter of fact (and this consideration is very 
germane to the issue) during this period Athens had 
no truly imperial position at all, not even a hege- 
monic one, for which it might be claimed that it 
ennobled leader or led. Her First Empire, so soon 
as, having ceased to be a militant League against 
Persia, it lost its first justification, had assumed 
another under the reasoned direction of Pericles. The 
imperial Eepublic, keeping her tributaries entirely 
under her control, was to elevate them with herself 
into a splendid organism, representative of the best 
in Hellenism as against all the world. Obligations 

1 For the importance of this supply, cf. Hell. v. 1, 28; 4. 61; 
and Dem. Cor. 87. 

2 Cf. Phil. i. 46, 47. 

3 Theopomp. fr. 117 ; Nep. Chair. 3. 



148 PHILIP 

which could not be enforced upon her were to be 
acquitted of her own free will more fully than her 
subjects could have dreamed. Hence that largeness 
of ideal, and esj)ecially that exalted sense of obligation, 
which characterize the policy of Athens in the fifth 
century and are reflected in her literature and her 
art. The citizen has an ambition transcending mere 
civic life ; the calls upon him keep him alert and 
active ; his ruder energies find worthy vent, and his 
sense of demi-godlike superiority to his kind renders 
him incapable of what is sordid and small. In this 
way the First Empire justified itself awhile to the 
leader herself, and may perhaps find justification also 
at the bar of history, notwithstanding that the led 
for their part in no way identified themselves with, 
nor even acquiesced in, this ideal of their leader. 

But the Second Empire, falsely so-called, that 
is the revived League of 378, must be judged less 
favourably by history. The incompatibility of the 
Periclean ideal with weak human nature had come to 
be proved before Pericles' own death by protest after 
protest from the " allies," followed by actual revolt. 
The very loftiness of the leader caused her to be 
hated with such a hatred as has been meted out to 
few imperial cities; and the constantly increasing 
coercion which she had to practise towards her 
dependencies throughout the closing decades of the 
century went far to neutralize any ennobling effect of 
her imperial position. Athens stood, at the opening 
of the fourth century, amid the ruins of her First 
Empire, disillusioned, her demi-godlike state past for 



ATHENIAN EMPIRE 149 

ever, herself tumbled rudely to a lower level of 
obligation and ideal. 

Therefore, when, after the conclusion of a series of 
free commercial alliances and the reconstitution of 
her own means of offence and defence, Athens suc- 
ceeded, a generation later, in imposing her headship 
once more on above seventy cities, she did so under 
conditions which j)recluded this restored " Empire " 
from having any ennobling or elevating effect even 
on herself. The Second League was formed by the 
coercion of a single victorious fleet, and had a host 
of foes both within and without. In the original 
articles of association, which have been preserved to 
us on the official marble, 1 Athens abandons by 
implication all the imperial rights which in her first 
Empire she had assumed in virtue of her own demi god- 
head. This League the Republic forms, not for her own 
aggrandisement, but in the interest of the continued 
existence of herself, equally with that of the smallest 
signatory. She admits that she has no right to use 
the lands of the allies for her own benefit, or to try 
their citizens by her laws. They, for their part, 
agree to send deputies and contributions to her for 
convenience' sake, being obviously jealous of her head- 
ship, and prepared to dissociate on the slightest sign 
of her assertion. With hardly anything in common 
but jealousy, such a League did not need a Philip 
to break it up, and as a matter of fact it had 
dissolved by no act or devising of his, before ever 
he laid a finger on Athenian possessions. 
1 C. I. A. ii. 17. 



150 PHILIP 

Thereafter Athens in the fourth century had a 
number of uncertain, free allies, but no subject empire 
really under her own control, except those tracts in 
Samos, and on the northern shore of the Dardanelles, 
which were held, in contravention of her sworn assur- 
ance, by bodies of armed colonists, together with the 
unimportant islands of Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, 
and, for a brief period and very doubtfully, Euboea — 
and these few she effectually could neither protect 
nor coerce. 

Small wonder that Imperialism, when not recalled 
as a glorious memory of an earlier age, connoted 
little to the orators and historians of the fourth 
century but piratical raiding and the levying of 
blackmail, truckling to the Barbarian, 1 complaints 
and protests from islands and cities, mercenary 
expeditions, and shifty evasions of sworn treaties. 
So far from ennobling, it reminded of decadence of 
prestige abroad, and was associated with failure of 
political morality at home. 

It is contended, however, that in this first half of 
the fourth century there was merely an eddy in the 
stream of Athenian progress ; that the polity of 
Athens was not really old, only exhausted for the 
moment by mighty effort, and about to have risen 
again, a giantess refreshed. Now a state no more 
than an individual can put on its youth again, 
but not less than an individual it may hasten its 
age. While the pulse beats at fever heat, both an 
individual and a state live many years in one. The 
1 Cf. Aesch. Cles. 238 ; Bern. Phil. iv. 31. 



A CHOSEN PEOPLE 151 

Athenians, who had started manhood under the tre- 
mendous stimulus of a general belief that they were 
a chosen people, continued to live at the highest 
pressure under the guidance of Pericles and Periclean 
ideas for more than two generations. It was the 
existence of a huge slave population, of course, that 
made it possible for the privileged citizen body to 
cultivate exclusively its intellectual and physical 
perfection. It was the quick Ionian wit of its 
members that inclined them to the life political. 
The ephebic training gave every young citizen the 
same ambitions and the same tastes, and Periclean 
state-socialism took from them all concern for old 
age. Thus not merely a leisured minority, but the 
whole body of citizens, was able to lead for two- 
thirds of a century a life more intense than has 
fallen to the lot of any class in history ; and the 
Athenian state passed through the experience of three 
centuries at least in that one, working out a more 
complete evolution in politics, in art, and in letters, 
than many another people has developed in a 
millennium. 

Beginning the century as an aristocratic state, 
Athens ended it as a democracy developed to the 
last degree that that form of polity, as understood 
by Greek publicists, would admit. There was no 
reserve, nothing still to come in the next age, no 
large proletariate, for example, whose gradual eman- 
cipation might initiate fresh phases of vigour. The 
proletariate of Athens was all servile, and reckoned 
outside the polity. Henceforward there is no further 



152 PHILIP 

constitutional development to be remarked in Athens, 
but merely abuse of what has been developed already, 
as obligation ceased to be felt and self-indulgence 
increased. The orator system, for instance, is no 
new feature, merely an inevitable exaggeration of an 
old one. When Athens was aristocratic, but not 
imperial, we hear most of her Archons ; with the rise 
of her empire the Generals come to the front ; with 
its fall, and the disappearance of the aristocracy, the 
Talkers preside over the State. Alexander demanded 
the surrender not of generals, but orators. Demos- 
thenes himself was a symptom of democracy in decay. 

If we turn from politics to art and literature, we 
note the same complete evolution. Sculpture has 
passed in a century from archaism to the birth 
of mannerism with Praxiteles. All writers on the 
subject recognize a pause in the fourth century. 
The artist in marble or bronze has no more to 
learn, no new world to conquer; his art has come 
clown to earth, and is henceforward to be imitative 
or reforming only. The case is not otherwise with 
literature. The Epos is fixed finally ; prose style 
culminates in Isocrates ; Euripides has developed the 
Drama to the last point of humanism which the 
peculiar conditions of the Greek stage would admit, 
and presently with Menander it is to cease to be 
scenic and to become literary. 

Furthermore, let two things be remarked in Athenian 
literature which, more than anything else, argue that 
the Athenian polity was aging, and not enduring a 
mere passing reaction. It has been remarked often 



GENERAL DECAY 153 

that towards the end of the fifth century the tone 
of Athenian writers becomes distinctly anti-imperial. 
Thucydides, Aristophanes, Euripides, Plato, are none 
of them for the Empire. All condemn in their 
several ways the imperial idea, although, as certainly 
as our own giants in letters of the Elizabethan and 
Victorian ages, those great Athenians owed their 
own intellectual eminence to the imperial position 
of the society in which they moved. The explana- 
tion is not far to seek. The intellectual activity, 
which the empire stimulated, had led, on the one 
hand, to a dawning sense of a circle of obligation, 
with which Empire was not consistent, on the other, 
to ideals of human happiness not necessarily political. 
The Athenian had become conscious, and a race, once 
it has reasoned about its own existence, has left its 
demi-god state behind for ever, and is no longer 
" chosen." The heyday of life vanishes with the 
birth of reflection. 

Secondly, it is surely significant that poets, both 
of the first and second order, should cease from 
Athens as the fourth century advanced. For a 
nation to confine its artistic effort in literature to 
the study of assonance and hiatus in prose, and 
that mainly ad captandum in the shallow style 
of the orator, implies surely that the evening of 
creative power has set in. That there should have 
come to be a demand for elaborate harangues, smelling 
of the lamp, was a sign of political decadence ; that 
the literary class should have supplied almost nothing 
else, is proof that the decadence extended to art. 



154 PHILIPy 

Philip obtrudes himself on this Athenian stage 
when decadence is no longer a tendency but an estab- 
lished fact ; when democracy has passed into mob- 
rule, and opportunists, like Eubulus, 1 are at the helm 
of state. The Macedonian was responsible not for 
the predominance of such opportunists, but merely, 
like Sparta of old, for the line they elected to 
take. He appears also when there exists no longer 
at Athens generals even of the type of Chabrias 
or Timotheus, 2 but in their stead condottieri and 
respectable corporals like Phocion; when no poet 
has been seen since Euripides, prose has reached its 
last expression in the orator, and artists are passing 
into imitative artisans. So far as we can see, there 
loomed before the Athenian, in the middle of the 
fourth century, no future except to develop exag- 
geration, refinement, mannerism, and imitation in 
the small round of in-bred city life, and to pass away 
at last, monstrous or decayed. 

The sum of this whole matter may be set down 
thus. Had Macedon never arisen, the city of Athens 
probably would not have been very different at the 
end of the fourth century from what actually she 
came to be; and Philip may be acquitted at once 
of having done, even indirectly, any grave hurt to 
civilization by his action towards her. Nay more — 
and now we face the assertion that the continued 
vigour of the civic existence of Athens, had it been 

1 Theopomp. fr. 96. Cf. Aesch. Ctes. 25 ; Dein. in Bern. p. 102, 
99. 

2 Nep. Chair. 3. 



THE EXPANSION OF HELLAS 155 

possible for it to be sustained, would have been the 
most precious condition of human progress — Philip, 
by hastening the decadence of the Greek city-state, 
did the Greek race in particular, and all mankind in 
general, no small service. Needless to say, no such 
service was in his thoughts. Needless to say, it was 
not he that first set going, or he that conducted to its 
height, the overflow of Hellas. The banks had been 
leaking obscurely for a half century past. Mercen- 
aries, trading colonists, favourites of kings, and bar- 
barian chieftains, had been learning to forget their 
civic allegiance in wider spheres of energy ; and 
Cyrus the Younger, Agesilaus, Jason of Pherae, had 
all done their part to awake dim consciousness in the 
Hellene that it lay but with himself to possess the 
world. But it needed a mightier arm than theirs 
to break down altogether the barriers which con- 
fined the citizen to his city. Philip may be said 
to have cut decisively the dykes, Alexander to have 
guided and controlled the flood. 

This is not the place — another may be found 
more suitable — to portray the Greek of the coming 
age, called so justly the Hellenistic ; for the expan- 
sion of Hellas reached, of course, its full limits only 
under the successors of Philip's son. But as it was 
Philip who, at least, made that expansion possible, it 
is but just to link his name loosely with those great 
benefits which were to accrue to Hellenism and the 
world in the new era. Briefly, the Hellene, being 
cut as by a pruner from the aged stem of his polity, 
began an independent development in a new soil, 



156 PHILIP 

with new juices to feed upon and a new sky opened 
overhead. No longer bound by the tyranny of cor- 
porate evolution to refine on the already too refined, 
and to follow the grooves which decline to corporate 
death, his individual genius could enter on a new 
progress. Born and trained to a higher grade of 
political capacity than members of any other con- 
temporary race, he applied to all communities into 
which he came higher and more universal princi]Dles 
of government than they had known hitherto ; and 
in the new field those principles took a new and 
larger scope than in his own little polity of old. 
His mind having been exercised through thought 
and the application of thought, he could apply it 
to any science or condition of life, and accordingly 
everywhere he instituted an advance on what had 
preceded him. But removed from the hothouse 
atmosphere of his parent polity, his genius takes 
now a more practical aspect. It turns to applied 
science rather than the pure theoretic, to decorative 
and domestic art, to application of literary form 
and finish, to the presentation of useful knowledge, 
to treating, in short, art as made for man rather 
than man as made for art. Aristotle, Euclid, Era- 
tosthenes, and Ptolemy the geographer are more 
genuine products of this new era than Apollonius, 
Callimachus, or Theocritus; the artistic culinary 
implements of Pompeii express it more aptly than 
the Sidon sarcophagi, the Pergamum frieze, or the 
Laocoon. The Greek went out to be the leaven of 
a world, which had not forgotten art and theory, but 
was no longer to live by art and theory alone. 



PHILIP'S PART 157 

It was remarked long ago that the modern world 
has taken no political institution consciously or 
directly from Athens, that is to say, in letters 
and in art the Athenian is not our immediate fore- 
father. For if it is true that all the roads of 
civilization lead back to Greece, equally it is true 
that they run for vastly the greater part of their 
course not through Greece. But none the less all 
along those roads, down to the gate of modern times, 
the Greek is conducting us always, himself the spirit 
of progression. Had no Philip nor such rude giant 
driven him forth from the frontiers of his little state, 
our present debt to Hellas had been little greater than 
can be contracted by conscious archaists in political 
science, in letters, and in art. But Philip it was that 
forced the Hellene into the open sea, and therefore, 
if it be that " nothing moves in the world which is 
not Greek in origin," it is owed to no man more than 
the Macedonian. And surely if the great dead still 
may note the course of progress, in which once they 
played a part, a reconciliation must have been sealed 
long ago in the Elysian Fields between Demosthenes 
and his " barbarian of Pella." 




PORTRAIT BUST OF ALEXANDER 
Tivoli Herm in the Louvre 



ALEXANDER 

The bloody mantle of a murdered king has dropped 
seldom so uneasily as upon the shoulders of Alex- 
ander. His legitimacy had been impugned by his 
father. The party that looked to him was not 
dominant at court. A dispossessed uncle and a half- 
brother were at hand to claim his succession. His 
mother had contrived certainly, and he himself was 
suspected to have been privy to, the cruel catastrophe 
that had just befallen. 

It can have been with no too sanguine hopes 
that the boy allowed friends and flatterers to buckle 
his corslet and lead him to claim Philip's throne. 
A few minutes earlier the butchered king had been 
borne back to his palace. The streets on that October 
morning, all in gala trappings for the interrupted 
feast, were probably as empty now as the fatal 
Theatre ; for it was the doubtful hour after a great 
crime, when an oriental crowd runs instinctively to 
cover. Presently, however, what might not the 
assembled nobles and burghers attempt ? What 
would be the policy of that brilliant gathering of 
Envoys Extraordinary? What last and most, was 



160 ALEXANDER 

likely to be the mood of the great Army of Asia, 
marshalled in the Yardar plain? 

In the event this concurrent presence of ambas- 
sadors and soldiers in the first critical hours saved 
Alexander. Ere another's standard could be raised, 
he had had time to appeal in person to his father's 
allies, and to all sections of his father's army. 
The representatives of the former in the presence 
of the latter would have assured any heir of their 
loyalty perhaps with equal effusion; and honestly 
and promptly the army declared for the hero of 
Chaeronea. Olympias had counted on memories 
of that great day, and Alexander appealing now 
with beauty and youth for his allies, did not appeal 
in vain. 

We can call up his image more distinctly than 
that of his father ; for Plutarch, who had seen por- 
traits by Lysippus and read contemporary memoirs 
now lost, has left a descriptive chapter, to be com- 
pared with such copies of the Lysippean type as sur- 
vive, and with countless idealized heads on medals and 
in marble. In all antiquity Alexander was famous for 
beauty of face, not quite of the then accepted type, 
but fuller featured and more ardent. Plutarch reports 
that his skin was singularly fair and clear, and though 
in stature not above the ordinary, he had the frame 
and aspect of an Olympic athlete. His father, indeed, 
once proposed that he should enter the lists for 
the great foot-race, but the haughty boy would not 
compete with less than his social peers. Further we 
are told that habitually his head was inclined a little 




PORTRAIT BUST OF ALEXANDER 
in the British Museum 



PORTRAIT 161 

towards the left shoulder, more probably in an uncon- 
scious pose than through malformation or disease, 1 
and that large and liquid but fiery eyes 2 arrested 
attention most in his face. In a copy of a por- 
trait bust, brought from Alexandria to our national 
collection, the spectator does remark indeed the 
character of the eyes, deep sunk beneath brows extra- 
ordinarily prominent, and shaded by very full lids, 
which fold over on themselves, the whole giving a 
singular impression of amplitude and life. Not less 
remarkable, however, are the mouth and chin, both 
sensuous, and inspiring insistent suspicion whether 
the Macedonian conqueror can indeed have been so 
indifferent to the lusts of the flesh as the ancients 
agreed to believe. 

This bust in the opinion of some critics 3 is a too 
emphatic copy, and less faithful than the Tivoli 
herm of the Louvre ; others 4 question if it represent 
a portrait at all. But in the matter of the mouth 
there is no need to take cover behind such doubts ; 
the tradition of antiquity and the sculptor are both 

1 Torticollis, or atrophy of the right side. Vide extracts from 
a paper by A. Dechambre, quoted in Rev. Arch. Ser. i. ix. 
p. 422. The learned doctor in his resume (p. 433) says, 
" L'antique connu sous le nom d'hermes d'Alexandre represente 
un personnage atteint d'un torticolis par raccourcissement du 
muscle sterno-mastoidien droit." 

2 Cf. Plut. Pomp. 2. 

8 E. g. Th. Reinach, in his discussion of the Alexander-heads on 
the Sidon sarcophagus (Une Necropole royale, etc., text, p. 293). 
Cf. frontispiece to this volume. 

4 F. g. F. Koepp {JJeher das Bildniss Alexanders des Grossen, 
Berlin, 1892). 

11 



162 ALEXANDER 

to be justified. For two things about Alexander 
must be borne in mind. On the one hand, he had no 
characteristic more salient than an inordinate pride 
of self which stepped in whenever his emotion 
threatened to break from control. He owed that 
pride to many causes — equally to the very plenitude 
of his powers, and to the circumstances of an early 
life, spent in bitter quarrel with his natural guardian, 
and in the premature independence which such rela- 
tions in a feudal state induce. Exalted by the 
admonishment of a great tutor, the boy had been 
also early invested with command, and exposed to 
every intoxication of flattery. By one of these 
influences or another, Alexander had manifestly been 
brought, ere he reached manhood, to regard, as many 
men not professedly moral have regarded, sexual 
surrender as to be withstood always and every- 
where. Those impulses which threaten most absolute 
dominion over self, he dreaded most ; and in the 
sequel, largely through the strenuous part for which 
he was cast during all his life, he succeeded in keep- 
ing them under, as few ascetics have done. He who 
had refused angrily to marry and leave an heir 
before he set out for Asia, begot only two children 
of his body, the second, Roxana's boy., after four 
fruitless years of wedlock ; and since death inter- 
posed early between his will and its inevitable decay, 
he has remained a pattern of continence to the ages, 
the most signal example perhaps in history of the 
subjection of the flesh to inordinate pride ! 

On the other hand, his nature was neither cold 



CHARACTER 163 

nor passionless. The flame burned fiercely enough 
in Alexander, little issue though it found in the love 
of women. The most beautiful of these he affected 
to regard as " soulless dolls," * but none the less he 
gloried in wine and song and feasting, like his father 
before him. 2 And even if we did not know his record 
so intimately, we might assume that no nature 
coldly intellectual could display the half of Alex- 
ander's recklessness ; no man not essentially emotional 
would risk so much for ideas ; no one not frankly 
passionate had attached a great host to himself by 
a bond which held for seven years through sands 
and snows, and survived at the Sutlej and at Opis. 
But we do not depend alone on inference. Was 
there not in Alexander's life at least one emotional 
friendship, a friendship of that type which, based 
obscurely on passion, in certain natures passes the 
love of women ? Perhaps he consciously directed 
the imperious current of his emotion into that 
channel to avoid all risk of sexual slavery ; but even 
so, if we believe Plutarch 3 and the consent of anti- 
quity, Alexander stands absolved of all suspicion of 
sin ; and we must count him not worse than the 
best of the race and school of Plato in the age before 
the idealization of woman. 

The prince, called thus suddenly to Philip's seat, 
had enjoyed no common education. The nature 
inborn in any son of Olympias (Aeacid though 
she was) would be rather that of an Albanian 

1 Plut. Alex. 21. 2 Cf. Athen. x. 45. 3 Alex. 22. 



164 ALEXANDER 

chieftain than a Greek citizen ; and if indeed Alex- 
ander sprang too from Philip's loins, he would be 
also on that side but a rude Hellene. On this 
proud mountain stock, however, had been grafted, 
by Philip's example and the precepts of his tutors, 
all the most exclusive sentiment of a Greek. Con- 
fident heir of a new-made order, cradled in the late- 
invented militarism, and imbued almost at his father's 
knee with the idea that whoso disposed of the forces 
of Macedon could dispose also of the earth, Alex- 
ander had been subjected to all exalting influences, 
and those untempered by parental control worthy 
the name. By inevitable consequence, in a latitude 
of early maturity, he was become full man ere he 
ascended his father's throne — a man who for years 
had been forming most definite ambitions, and, in 
measuring his personal powers against those of all 
the leading spirits of his sphere, had rated himself 
their equal or their better. He would know and do 
what no man else had known or clone. " Not 
rightly," he wrote to Aristotle, " hast thou published 
the doctrines that thou taughtest to me by word of 
mouth, for why should the rest of the world be 
even as I ? " To himself he seemed to be the " god 
in mankind," with no straiter limitations, no gentler 
code of right, than a demi-god of Homer's world. 
There are many stories of the boy's precocious self- 
assertion. Like a potentate of our own day, educated 
under influences not dissimilar, who maybe has 
modelled himself a little on the Macedonian, Alex- 
ander believed in royal roads to knowledge. He 



ASSERTION OF SELF 165 

would grasp the innermost mysteries of philosophy 
before he had learned well its rudiments ; he thought 
to have penetrated the arcana of medicine, and 
gravely lectured his most venerable physicians. But 
the ready smile fades in wonder, that, seeing who 
this prince was, and how brought up — seeing that 
his interests ranged from the conquest of the world 
to the collection of specimens — seeing withal that 
his follies were committed all before men — never- 
theless such tales should be so few ! 

So we are confronted, from the very outset, by a 
most masterful and conscious character, self-reliant 
to a fault, little hampered by restraints of constitution 
or family, but disciplined somewhat in Philip's hard 
school of arms. Add a most brilliant, precocious 
intellect, given the widest scope by contact for three 
years with the mind of Aristotle and deeply tinged 
with the romantic side of Hellenic culture ; add the 
frame and constitution of an Olympic victor, and, 
again, the beauty of a Praxitelean god. Alexander's 
physical excellences attracted those whom his intel- 
lectual force might have daunted or repelled ; and 
the two together endowed him with a personal 
magnetism which seems to have been felt equally 
by the subtlest Greek and the rudest barbarian in 
his service. On a far greater scale than Alcibiades, 
Alexander was born to do the most good or the 
most harm to all his world. 

What nature of inheritance devolved on this 
leader of men? A professional army of probably 



166 ALEXANDER 

not less than 60,000 men of all arms was absolutely 
ready to his hand, mobilized at the moment of his 
accession. That force was in a state of perfect 
discipline and efficiency, having received the last 
touches of its maker ; and no soldiery in the world 
could compare with it for purposes of offence. 
The Macedonian navy, however, was but a small, 
neglected force, hardly adequate for coast defence, 
and inferior to fleets which several Greek and 
Asiatic cities severally could put on the sea at 
short notice. 

In territorial possession the boy received absolutely 
what still we call Macedonia, with the most part of 
Roumelia, bounded west by the Albanian watershed 
and north by the Balkan chains ; but the Black Sea 
slope was part savage and half-subdued, 1 part friendly 
but independent, under Byzantium. 2 Absolutely also 
he was lord of Thessaly. The completeness of sub- 
jection to Macedonian rule is shown best in all this 
region by the fact that it has left no coinage of 
this period but that issued by the royal mints of 
[acedon. 

The remainder of the Balkan peninsula lay also in 
dependence more or less complete. Greece south of 
Thermopylae was kept in check by military occupa- 
tion, the Gates themselves, the Theban cidatel, Chalcis 
the key of Euboea and Attica, and the Corinthian 

1 These Tliracians are still called avrovofxoL in Alexander's reign 
(Arr. i. 1). 

2 Which city sent ships to help Alexander in his Thracian 
campaign (Arr. i. 3). 



INHERITANCE 167 

approach to the Peloponnese, being held ' strongly 
with royal troops. But the cities continued to coin 
their own money, 1 and to be regarded nominally as sub- 
ject allies of the Macedonian king, a condition which 
they detested and would repudiate as soon as might 
be. Epirus remained an ally without being subject ; 
and all round the outer circle of the west and north 
the highland tribes of Albania, Montenegro, Servia, 
and Bulgaria were in an ill-defined tributary position 
towards Macedon, which called for rude correction 
from time to time ; for Philip's latest operations in 
those Balkan regions had not contributed much to a 
definite settlement. Finally, Macedonian troops were 
at this moment in possession of the farther shore of 
the Dardanelles, and a little of the inner land of Asia. 
It was a somewhat thorny heritage of Empire. No 
part of it was quite sound, not even the core, which 
it had been Philip's life-work to expand and assure. 
Through him indeed it was become loyal enough to 
the Macedonian crown, but not by any means was 
it so certainly attached to the person of the new 
king. The old trouble with the Feudatories was not 
quite past and done with : Alexander had to proceed 
at first with extreme caution in dealing, for ex- 
ample, with Lyncestians ; 2 and the arch Lyncestian 

1 The value of the numismatic test may be illustrated by the 
change which supervenes in Athens and the Peloponnese after the dis- 
astrous end of the Lamian War in 322. Their independent coinage 
becomes thenceforward as non-existent as that of Thessalv. 

2 Certain of whose chiefs fought on the Persian side in Asia, 
e. (j. Neoptolenius at Halicarnassus, and Amyntas at Issus; and 
Polemon fled to the foe at a later period, but returned to allegiance. 



168 ALEXANDER 

conspirator could not be put to death until years 
after his guilt was established. 1 Still more dangerous 
seemed certain of those who, having been foremost 
in Philip's councils, knew that his elder son perhaps 
would not, had the father lived longer^ have been 
his designated successor. 

Eager to realize the legacy of his father's hopes, 
the son had first to secure the inheritance of his 
father's deeds. Alexander's seat in Europe was none 
too sure. Greece, agitated by Demosthenes, showed 
a most uncertain mood ; 2 the Balkan tribesmen were 
openly defiant. To neutralizing these foes within 
and without the first year and a half of the new reign 
had to be devoted, and in that brief but strenuous 
schooling in peril and patience the exuberant boy 
sensibly matured. Most notable is it, how these two 
preliminary campaigns in Europe display already the 
assertive personality of the future conqueror. Alex- 
ander ha^a perfect machine left ready to his hand, 
but its mechanical perfection induces in him no me- 
chanical habit ; even thus early he quickens it with 
all the fire of his own spirit. When at the putset 
the Thessalians bid him wait without their closed 
door of Tempe, convention would have enjoined 

1 Cf. Arr. i. 25, with Curt. vii. 15, and Justin, xi. 2. 

2 The state of Greece at this crisis is well set forth by B. Niese, 
Geschkhte der griech. und mahedon. Staaten, etc. (i. pp. 53 ft'.). In 
fact, this passage and another on the condition of Greece and 
the West generally during Alexander's last years (p. 161 ff.) are 
the best in Niese's too summary and too little critical work 
(1893). 



FIRST CAMPAIGNS 169 

the assault or the purchase of what had long been 
held to be the one practicable pass. But the new 
Captain, without a moment's hesitation, turns to 
the impracticable route, and succeeds. His spear- 
men are bidden cut steps along the sea-face of Ossa, 1 
and get through where goats hardly had passed 
before. For result, the rising insolence of the penin- 
sula abjectly collapsed, and not a murmur was heard 
except from Sparta, when the boy came down to 
Corinth to claim the proud prerogatives of his father. 
And for further result, a year later, only the reported 
death of this stripling of twenty, at whom Demos- 
thenes had been jeering so lately, emboldened tortured 
Thebes to raise the standard of revolt. Warning of 
the dreadful phalanx did not dash the spirit of the 
rebels, for they were told it was led by Antipater, or 
by some namesake of Alexander. Then lo ! the boy 
himself was without tbe walls. Just as he found 
himself with his army at the moment that the ill 
news came to Lake Ochrida, unreinforced, careless of 
his communications and his supplies, he had made 
straight for the nearest gap in the frontier range, 
and in fourteen days was seated over against the 
Cadmeia. There was one sortie, and a tough tussle 
in the streets with the stiff-backed Theban burghers, 
and not another sword was unsheathed in Greece for 
five years. 

In the previous Balkan campaign, too, the aptcrreta 
had been not less Alexander's, half reckless barbarian 
that he was, half heir of the highest civilization hi 
1 Polyaenus, iv. 3. 23. 



170 ALEXANDER 

his age, and always source and spring of action. He 
demanded and obtained from his soldiers the prowess 
of single champions. In the very first engagement 
they must break up their close, confident formation, 
and, crouching under their shields, let Triballian 
waggons hurtle over their bodies down the Balkan 
slopes. 1 They were ferried in a single night across 
the greatest river in their world, to demonstrate 
in a land absolutely unreconnoitred. The most 
complicated movements of the parade-ground had 
to be executed calmly in an open valley, for the 
psychologic value of the spectacle upon the watch- 
ing ambuscades which beset flank and rear. And 
already we find Alexander obeyed implicitly by 
professional soldiery, doubtless not a little because 
he was the bombastic young athlete, darling of rude 
men, who dropped the generalissimo whenever there 
was a wild charge to be headed, who risked him- 
self and the flower of his force across the Danube, 
simply that he might say he had crossed it, and 
prodigally spent health and strength in being first 
in every forced inarch, first through every doubtful 
ford, and first into every fenced city. A measure 
of self-conscious display was added to impulse, for 
Alexander was but twenty-one ; and there are well- 
known tales of his frank disappointment if his 
audience remained unmoved. But whether when 
Diogenes grimly tells him, would-be Lord Bountiful, 
to stand away from his sunlight, or when certain 
hairy Kelts, to whose thews the boy's soul had 
1 Polyaenus, iv. 3. 11. 



ALEXANDER PANHELLENE 171 

warmed, refuse in the true Scots spirit the shadow 
of a compliment to all his fishing, Alexander has 
always enough conviction or enough nobility to keep 
his temper and his dignity. And, indeed, the very 
frankness of the boy's self-assertion, inspiring still a 
kindly sentiment for him in this fair spring of his 
year, reveals the secret of his extraordinary personal 
magnetism. However conscious the pose, however 
deliberate the action, there remained in Alexander to 
the end so much of an exuberant child of nature, 
who used all his powers recklessly for all they were 
worth, that custom never staled the enthusiasm he 
so openly sought. 

A year and a half passed by, and by the time 
that the young Captain was ready for the great 
venture in whose inception his father had died, and 
whereof himself had dreamed long, the noise of him 
and the fear had spread from the Danube to the 
southernmost isles of the Greek sea. He was become 
to the mass of his Macedonians a Hero who could do no 
wrong ; but this idolatry was not enough for his ambi- 
tion, and he was bent on winning a like throne in the 
hearts of the Greeks. Even as Philip, so Alexander, 
piqued by the precious exclusiveness of Athens, paid 
involuntary homage to her pre-eminence in a world 
more universal than his own; but more than his 
father, for he had had the better Hellenic training, 
he would make appeal to her literary and artistic 
sense, sparing the house of Pindar, sleeping head 
on Homer, and proclaiming in an open letter to 



172 ALEXANDER 

Aristotle, that lie set the great achievements of pure 
intellect above all feats of arms. A romantic vein 
having led him in this first bloom of his youth to set 
up the Homeric Hero as his life's ideal, the title of 
Captain-General of Hellas, which seemed to lift its 
holder to an Agamemnonic pinnacle, was taken 
probably by Alexander at the first much more 
seriously than by Philip. 

The boy could not, however, have been possessed 

of the intelligence which was his, had he supposed 

the Greeks, least of all the Athenians, to be with 

him heart and soul. The reception which the 

news of his father's death had met with south of 

Olympus, the obstruction offered to his own first 

entry into Thessaly, the revolt of Thebes, and the 

sympathy shown to her beyond Cithaeron, had supplied 

warnings patent to a duller man than Alexander. 

And, indeed, it was clearly to conciliate a hostile 

spirit of which he was uneasily conscious, that he 

began by making not only appeal to Athenian culture, 

but the same sort of gracious concession to Athenian 

political pride that his father had fancied would be 

grateful. Like Philip, Alexander never violated Attic 

soil; like Philip, when he had to arraign certain 

statesmen for words or deeds hostile to himself, he 

ostentatiously left the convicted in the hands of the 

sovereign Athenian people. Unlike Philip, however, 

he seems not to have believed that such favours 

could avail alone, but to have relied for ultimate 

success rather on his own personality, on his physical 

beauty, on his intellectual culture, and on the 



THE PERSIAN CRUSADE 173 

Homeric spectacle he was about to display of a 
new Achilles gone to Asia. Ruined Thebes he hoped 
thus would be forgotten, 1 thus the enthusiastic 
applause of the Academy be won, thus that he might 
make of his present Empire and his future conquest 
one Hellenic unity, himself acclaimed by free conviction 
the one worthy prince of the whole. 

Behold, then, a very sanguine and large-hearted 
youth, somewhat conscious and greedy of recognition 
and applause, bid adieu to his mother on the Mace- 
donian border in early spring of 334, and march off 
with forty thousand men-at-arms and his hopes for 
the Dardanelles. Those " hopes " which, after giving 
away almost all his substance with a quixotic indif- 
ference to money and luxuries which remained cha- 
racteristic to the end, Alexander had said, laughing, 
would pass the straits alone of all his treasures, were 
already full-fledged. He proposed nothing short of 
complete dispossession of the great Darius in favour 
of himself, Captain-General of Hellas, in short, the 
establishment of his own panhellenic Empire in the 
room of the Persian. 

It might be superfluous to emphasize this so 
obvious ambition of the young Alexander, were it not 
that there is hardly a commentator or a critic but 
has forgotten it by the time the Conqueror is come 
to Issus. Thenceforward special reasons are sought 
and supplied with a wealth of perverse ingenuity for 
almost every forward movement. From Egypt to 
1 Plut. Alex. 13. 



174 ALEXANDER 

the Euphrates, from Persepolis to the Caspian, from 
the Caspian to the Sir Daria, from Balkh to India, 
Alexander is said to be forced by this particular 
consideration of policy, or that fresh goad of masterful 
fate. In truth, however, the motive influence was 
always one and simple. From the first Alexander 
looked to reach no goal, and indeed reached none, 
either at Memphis, or at Arbela, or at Babylon, or 
at Persepolis, or in the little gorge where Darius lay 
dead, so long as any tiara but his own was erect 
in the Persian Empire, or a single satrapy had failed 
to acknowledge his sway. And such a plan of cam- 
paign was, beyond a doubt, what contemporary Greeks 
understood by the due wreaking of the revenge of 
Hellas. That the campaign of Vengeance should 
be merely demonstrative, to be relinquished when 
the Palace of Xerxes was burned, or his successor 
had been done to death — that one should vanquish 
but not possess the lands of the vanquished — this 
was neither contemporary theory, nor likely to be 
contemporary practice. At least no such conception 
was present to the minds of those who saw, some 
with grief, some with joy, but all with surprise, 
Alexander burn at Persepolis what they recognized 
was now become his own. 

We are not called upon to find a fresh motive for 
progress west of the Indus. The simple scheme of 
dispossessing the one rival Emperor in his world and 
possessing in his room, had been Philip's last absorb- 
ing idea ; it had become that of the boy Alexander 
even before his father's death ; it continued to be his 



SPIRIT OF THE CRUSADE 175 

when king. From the very first in Asia Alexander 
assumed the position of the Persian, replacing the 
latter' s satraps with his own, continuing the old 
system of administration, with, at first, special 
indulgence for Greek cities, 1 accepting even Persian 
officials if proved loyal to their new Great King ; and 
every province, witness Egypt in chief, was organized 
as a possession for ever. The Macedonian put his 
own purpose nakedly enough in replying to Darius' 
overtures before Arbela, 2 that he required all the 
king's lands, not any part : " I, Alexander, consider 
the whole of thy treasure, and the whole of thy 
land, to be mine." How can this be misconceived ? 
The Conqueror did not march on a bee-line to 
Susa, but he was making thither not less but 
more surely, because from Side, from Issus, from 
Arbela he turned off the main track to fix his foot- 
ing so surely that no one after him ruled in the 
western empire of Persia but on western lines before 
the Hegira. 

Ultimately, as will be seen in the sequel, the 
Conqueror's ideal came to transcend these primary 
limits, and the conquest of Persia was forgotten in 
the conquest of the Earth. Equally, but much 
earlier, the outward sanction which the Conqueror 

1 Cf. his letter to the people of Smyrna, the record of which is 
preserved in an inscription (C. I. G. 3137, 11. 100 ff.) ; also similar 
privileges granted to Priene (B. 31. inscr., iii., No. 400). 

2 On the authenticity of these letters to Darius, see Pridik, Be 
Al. Magni epistularum commercio, pp. 39 ff. That learned scholar 
accepts them as at least embodying genuine matter. Niese accepts 
them also, but without criticism. 






176 ALEXANDER 

had sought at first for his conquest was forgotten 
also. Partly it had become meaningless in the face 
of facts; partly it was needed no longer. What 
survived through all change was the single human 
desire, which was actuating Alexander on the hither 
shore of the Dardanelles, and would be prepon- 
derating on his death-bed, the desire, namely, of 
acquisition. Trite as it may seem, this needs saying 
again. Alexander, like Philip, was but a man of his 
age and race — an age and race whose greatest thinker 
laid it down for law that Hellene was justified abso- 
lutely in enslaving barbarian. No more subtle moral 
rule claimed the attention of a Hellenic conqueror in 
Asia at that day, than the right of the stronger. 
The world was that Hellene's oyster whose sword 
could lift the shell. 

Why Philip wished to be first and foremost a 
•Hellene has been discussed in the former essay. All 
the motives which actuated him were but stronger 
in Alexander. Both wished to rest on a unified base 
wider than Macedonia, both to conquer and hold a 
vast Empire beside. Both — for they were Hellenes 
b} 7 birth and training — believed that the second 
element to be incorporated with the Macedonian, 
both in the base and in the conquest, was the Hel- 
lenic; but Alexander understood the better how to 
deal with it. One cannot be too fearful of credit- 
ing a youth who makes history with a consciousness 
in advance of his epoch, or beyond his years. To 
claim for Alexander that he conceived the regeneration 
of the world by the Hellene is sheerly absurd ; to 



CROSSING TO ASIA 177 

suppose that thus early he foresaw altogether even 
what Hellenes would effect for his own selfish end of 
Empire, is to rank him with the Prophets. But to 
say that he had learned from his father's and his own 
experience that a base on which Hellene and Mace- 
donian would fuse firmly together must be outside 
the traditional home of either ; that the Hellene would 
prove of even greater service in the holding of Empire 
than in the conquering thereof ; and that with a view 
to both these considerations the Hellene's commercial 
interest must be appealed to, and his commercial apti- 
tudes utilized — this is only to place Aristotle's pupil 
early in his precocious life among the more enlightened 
minds of his own day. 

Alexander came, then, in this April of 334, to the 
shore of the Dardanelles, with an ambition to possess 
all Persia as already he possessed all Greece. He was 
captain of the Hellenes, full of faith in the Hellenic 
nationality, and most desirous, in the interests of 
security as well as of sentiment, that enforced obedi- 
ence might give place through the gods and him- 
self to some such willing recognition of his own pre- 
eminence as Pericles had enjoyed awhile at Athens. 
His mood was of the most exalted and romantic ; he 
crossed and landed with the strictest Heroic usage, 
solemnly visited Ilium, and went through a whole 
archaistic masque as another Achilles. 1 And when 

1 He even returned after Granicus, and promoted the squalid 
village to be a free city by way of thanksgiving (Strabo, p. 593) ; 
and it is probably the ruin of this New Ilium that Schliemann 

12 



178 ALEXANDER 

a few days later lie found himself for the first time 
face to face with his foe, scorning, as a Hero might, 
all counsels of caution, he charged forthwith with 
a rush of horsemen through the stream of Granicus, 
himself seeking and fighting single combats as before 
windy Troy. The spoil was dedicated as a solemn 
firstf raits to the gods of the Greeks, and in formal 
terms Alexander decreed annihilation to those dastard 
Hellenes who were found opposing in arms the Captain- 
General of their race. 

Scarce two months later at Miletus Alexander again 
had at his mercy a body of Greeks, equally guilty ; 
he allowed them to surrender on terms, and took 
them into his service. It is a small matter, but 
a straw on the stream of events. What had hap- 
pened since the " Cavalry Battle," to ease the con- 
science of the Captain-General? In effect enough 
to make Miletus a point clearly marked in the 
passing of the enthusiastic boy into the calculating 
man of affairs. For those two months had proved 
to demonstration nothing less than that the maritime 
states of Hellas, those that alone greatly mattered, 
were in their hearts not for Alexander, but for his 
enemies. The larger islands, Rhodes, Chios, and 
Lesbos, and nearly all the lesser, kept open ports 

found in the uppermost layer at Hissarlik (cf. Sehuchhardt, 
Schliemann's Excavations, pp. 79 ff. ; and C. I. G. 3595 for its 
increase under the Diadochi). It was not a foundation to serve any 
purposes of commerce or strategy ; for Antigonus was under the 
necessity of creating hard by a new city for those ends, namely that 
Alexandria of the Troad, which became well known in subsequent 
centuries. 



FEELINGS OF THE GREEKS 179 

to the Persian admirals, and the city of Athens had 
been at no pains to disguise her sympathies. Her 
continental position and twenty of her ships, 
held as hostages by the Macedonian, made her warn 
Pharnabazus off the Piraeus ; but openly she sat 
within her walls watching for the first Macedonian 
reverse, and indeed had sent already, or was about 
to send soon, an envoy direct to Darius. 

In brief, Alexander had failed entirely to carry 
Athens with him on the wind of his enthusiasm. 
He had failed, partly because some of her best spirit 
survived still, refusing to be comforted for the loss 
of Empire ; partly because she had outlived her heroic 
period. At that stage of her conscious intellectualism, 
when oratory and philosophy had become popular 
diversions, an exuberant Homeric champion struck no 
true note of admiration. There was felt in Athens 
no longer any enthusiasm for crusades, and at best 
but a languid interest in the physical excellences 
of a youth who assumed the Hero and dared kings 
to battle. She was perhaps, to tell truth, a little 
wearied with him, and needed only encouragement 
by an t active agitator to express her feelings in open 
hostility* 

Therefore, at Miletus, the first sanguine hour of 
Alexander's life has closed, and on the wreck of his 
exuberant illusions begins to rise a sterner purpose. 
Greece must be coerced if she will not be courted. 
Her command of the seas shall be broken by the 
capture of the coasts of the Levant, and her people 
be bent willy nilly to do panhellenic work. For 



180 ALEXANDER 

Alexander knew that, even in spite of themselves, 
they would do it for him. And therefore, not having 
resigned all hope that they might be brought some 
day to see with him eye to eye, he retained, and 
put forward still the style and title of Captain- 
General. In face of present hostility, however, it 
was no longer worth while to maintain an offensive 
fleet ; and, accordingly, he issued now his much 
canvassed decision to " burn his boats " and leave 
himself stranded in Asia. 

It has not always been understood how inevitably 
that decision followed on the revelation that had 
been made. The sea was the element of the Greek. 
No fleet that, as yet, Alexander could requisition 
would make head for a moment against the squadrons 
of Persia and the Hellenic powers, should these 
combine. Furthermore, like most self-reliant men, 
Alexander was never easy about operations not 
conducted under his immediate eye. He could not 
be on the sea and the land at once ; furthermore, 
he had never contemplated, when he equipped his 
own small squadron, that it would remain always 
small ; and therefore, now that the expected reinforce- 
ments were accruing rather to the fleets of the foe 
than to himself, the Macedonian had no choice but 
to disband his few ships, become too precarious 
hostages to fortune. 

This early disillusionment, though it cooled the 
boy's spirit all too soon, and when pressed home by 
much future trouble with Greeks, embittered him not 
a little, and forced him in the end to adopt a policy 



CONQUEST OF THE COASTS 181 

alien to modern sympathy, was in certain ways 
salutary. The remembrance of it, and futile regrets 
that recurred from time to time all through his life, 
served for his memento mori, a constant check on 
the confident animalism of his physical nature. Had 
Alexander never experienced anything less stimu- 
lating than the favour and applause amid which he 
started for Asia, his splendid mental powers might 
have been exercised but little. Nature had framed 
him for a great warrior ; necessity made of him a 
great organizer of peace ; and it may be said that 
Greek hostility did at least as much as Greek precept 
to give him the claim that is his to have been more 
than conqueror. 

The check that he had experienced on the sea 
turned Alexander's ej'es wholly to that element for 
two years. The campaigns of the last half of 334, 
of 333, and of 332 had all for their objective the 
littoral of the Levant. Alexander took little trouble 
except with the coast districts, and little account of 
the Persian armies but as incidental checks. After 
traversing Lycia and Pamphylia with much thorough- 
ness, and marching and counter-marching for some 
weeks along the coasts of the latter, when at last 
he turned inland the conqueror stayed not to 
organize, hardly even to conquer, but was content 
to sweep clear a road up to some point which 
would be convenient for his reinforcements and 
command a practicable route to the south-eastern 
coasts. Gordium, where in the valley of the 



182 ALEXANDER 

Sakkaria a natural route from the Sea of Marmora 
— in part now the line of a railway — meets the 
track of the royal Anatolian highway of antiquity, 
was such a point ; and accordingly Alexander came 
thither in the spring of 333. Thence he set forth 
again in early summer, without visiting any part of 
the Black Sea littoral, content with a formal sub- 
mission made by the Paphlagonians ere he left 
Ancyra. All the rest of the work to be done in 
Asia Minor was left to satraps, and after two years 
the Cappadocians were able still to jom Darius at 
Arbela. 

The Macedonian had reason enough to hold in 
slight esteem the peoples of the Anatolian plateau, 
and to despise the foreigner who so long had claimed 
sovereignty over them, but, holding their lands by 
neither a military 1 nor a civil organization worth 
the name, has left hardly a memorial of his two 
centuries of. empire ! Alexander's attitude, however, 
implied not so much contempt for the inner land, as 
anxiety for the coast ; and for the coast he went 
again hot and hard, covering in a day and a night, 
we are told, not less than sixty-two miles, and thereby 
succeeded in swooping on the Cilician Gates before the 
Viceroy of Cilicia had begun to think seriously of 
reinforcing his pickets in the pass. How much time 
and trouble the unsparing Captain must have saved 
by that forced march may, perhaps, be estimated, if 
we recall that until Ibrahim Pasha, little more than 
a half-century ago, blasted the rocks in the famous 
1 See Niese, op. cit. p. 66. 



CILICIA 183 

defile, every camel had to be unloaded before it could 
pass. 

Spent by long noons and sleepless nights, Alexander 
brought his army, in the fearful heat of a Cilician 
August, to the sea-level, having descended three 
thousand feet in about three days. Small wonder 
that then and there he caught the Cilician fever ! * — 
the which mischance gave him, indeed, a notable 
opportunity of knitting more tightly the bonds of 
affection between himself and his immediate circle at 
a moment when murmurs, provoked by recent labours 
and his own exuberance, were beginning to be heard, 
but it lost a precious month. Let it not be supposed, 
however, that it was Issus that immediately was 
delayed. The settlement of an important maritime 
province came first in Alexander's mind. Darius was 
camped all the while no farther away than the plain 
of Sinjerli beyond Amanus ; but his rival found time 
to visit Soli twice, and to raid the hillmen of the 
Tracheia district, ere going leisurely enough to meet 
the Persian by the indirect way of Mallus. 

It is only the dazzling appeal that pitched battles 
make to the imagination which gives Granicus and 
Issus their bulk in Alexander's history. The first 
of those battles had been really a small affair, 
always regarded by contemporaries as a cavalry 
skirmish. It was not more comparable in respect 
of difficulties overcome or important result to the 

1 The famous bath in the Cydnus is more likely to have been 
aggravation than cause of that malady — a foolish attempt to 
alleviate the first flush of heat. 



tt 



184 ALEXANDER 

subsequent sieges of such cities as Halicarnassus, 
than was the fight at Issus to the siege of Tyre. 
Alexander himself wasted not a clay's pursuit on 
either of the Persian Grand Armies which he met 
west of Euphrates. He found them in his path, 
dealt a smashing blow, and left them to break up 
as they might, himself in each case continuing on 
his way irrespective of theirs. There was hardly 
more respect shown to the defeated army of Issus 
than to the Pisidian hillmen. 

That Issus, however, proved so light a matter to 
Alexander, was due, it is well known, to a particular 
mistake of the enemy. Had Darius stayed where 
he was encamped at first, Alexander must, in the 
interests of his own base and communications, have 
gone to find him, and been faced by a problem hardly 
less serious than ultimately he was to meet east of 
Tigris — how, in fact, with a very small force effec- 
tually to cut up an immense host, deployed where it 
could bring its overwhelming weight of flesh to bear. 
Partly, no doubt, because he expected such a task, Alex- 
ander took so much time to make Cilicia his, having 
little expectation that Darius would do anything so 
suicidal as move his unwieldy army through the moun- 
tains. The news that after all this clumsy host had 
deserted its chosen ground, and was to be met not even 
in the open Aleian plain, but in the cramped defiles of 
Issus, seemed to Alexander too good to be true ; and 
on its confirmation, he turned back — and no wonder ! — 
hot-foot and exulting, careless that his communications 
had been cut, careless that he was trapped, knowing 



ISSUS AND ITS CONSEQUENTS 185 

that the very stars in their courses would fight his 
battle. We must admire the skill and force with which 
he proceeded to follow up his advantage on the field, 
himself always in the front, inspiring the vital move- 
ment and securing the event against any possible 
mischance ; but let it be remembered at the same 
time that, from the very first, he was playing the 
winning game, and we shall confine our admiration 
to the degree and the manner in which he knew how 
to win. 

Certain consequents of Issus, however, are of more 
importance to Alexander's individual history than 
the battle itself ; for through it, in two ways, illu- 
mination came to him, and a distinct change in 
his personal attitude ensues. In the first place, not 
only had he been placed by the capture of Darius' 
baggage in possession of much correspondence between 
the Great King and Hellenic states, but also, for 
the first time, he had seized in flagrant fault the 
persons of Hellenic envoys sent up to the Persian. 
These springs of irritation fell to be added to all 
that had been happening for a year past in Greece, 
to the crusade preached by Agis of Sparta, to the 
militant speeches of the anti-Macedonian orators at 
Athens, 1 and to the unequal struggle of his friends 
in the islands with the ubiquitous Persian admirals. 
In the second place, the final proof thus furnished, that 
he could never hope to enjoy to the full the Periclean 
form of kingship, coincided with the first revelation 

1 Demosthenes and Hyperides, in the summer of 333. Vide 
Droysen, p. 242. 



186 ALEXANDER 

of the possibilities of another form. "This, it 
seems," said Alexander, as he gazed on the state and 
luxury of Darius' tent after the battle, " it is to be 
a King ! " And, although he would have no commerce 
with Darius' harem — a continence due as much 
to temperament as to chivalry — and remained con- 
temptuous of luxury, 1 it was not for nothing that, 
having become possessed of a large slice of w T ealth 
by ParmemVs capture of Damascus, he learned now 
what wealth could buy. Alexander's simplicity before 
this epoch had been the unconscious habit of his race ; 
hereafter it will be conscious policy. He has eaten 
of the fruit of the Tree, and with growing conscious- 
ness begins inevitable hardening. We detect the 
process presently in the tone and tenor of his letters 
to Darius, in his arbitrary attitude towards his 
prisoners and the vengeance meted out to Tyre and 
to Gaza ; 2 but best in more private matters, so far as 
we may know them. The famous scene in the tent 
of the captive queens at Issus is perhaps the last 
glimpse afforded in Alexander's life of that unre- 
flective chivalry which had induced him, a month or 
two before, to take his chance of death by poison 
rather than show suspicion of a friend. 

He was not, indeed, solely responsible for the 
change. Some of his followers had eaten also of the 
same fruit, and taken the greater harm ; for shortly 

1 Cf. e.g. Plut. Alex. 57 ; Polyaen. iv. 3. 10. 

2 The story of the punishment of Batis, the brave defender of 
Gaza (found in Curt. iv. 6, and Dion. Hal. de Comp. Verb. pp. 
123-125), is not to be set lightly aside for an utterly incredible 
cruelty, as Droysen pretends. 



ALEXANDER THE FOUNDER 187 

after Issus the first whispers of treason were breathed 
by Philotas to his mistress. Therefore, never again 
could Alexander afford so well to take chances as they 
came, never again to give without receiving directly 
the value of his gift. The illusions of boyhood 
had melted at Miletus, the hopes of youth have begun 
to fade at Issus. Alexander at Tyre is removed by 
two stages of growth from Alexander at Troy. He 
has become already older than his years, a man 
harder and more reflective, seeing farther and deeper 
than is congruous with his age of twenty-four : and 
after another year of most strenuous effort (for the 
capture of Tyre remains the greatest of his triumphs 
over natural difficulties and obstinate resistance), 
when the coasts of the Levant had become wholly 
his, and he was come down to the Mareotic shore, 
we find him founding his greatest Alexandria with 
the calculation and the providence of a mature man. 

It was once the fashion to endow Alexander the 
Founder with more than human foreknowledge of the 
future of his foundations ; now, by reaction, we are 
asked to deny him design. Alexandria in Egypt, 
it is said, was no better than a lucky accident. The; 
new foundation was meant at most to be an improved 
Naucratis, at once emporium for Greek traders to 
Egypt, and garrisoned post of observation on the 
Nile valley. Circumstances, in no way foreseen by 
the Founder, made a cosmopolitan city of what had 
been at first a mere Greek harbour in Egypt. 

Needless to say, many circumstances of which 



188 ALEXANDER 

Alexander had not foreknowledge, still less had con- 
trol, did combine indeed to raise Alexandria in two 
generations after its birth to the rank of second, if not 
first, city in the Mediterranean, and undisputed first 
in the Levant. The Founder did not foresee the Indian 
and Arabian trade which would come in by way of 
Coptos and the Nile, much as half-consciously he did 
later to open a route for that trade. The Founder 
did not foresee the influx into his city of an obscure 
race of Semitic traders, risen from the ashes of their 
Phoenician cousins, — the Jews, of whose cosmopolitan 
expansion the ruin of Tyre and the rise of Alexandria 
are jointly the first cause. The Founder did not 
foresee into what wise hands Egypt was to fall at 
his own death, and how she, and Alexandria within 
her, would grow at the expense of the rest of his 
distracted Empire. The Founder did not foresee that 
Hellenism would follow his own footsteps so far 
abroad, that its centre would shift to a great city of 
Egypt and a great city of Syria. 

Certain things, however, were not hidden in the 
womb of the Future. It must have been patent to 
a meaner intelligence than Alexander's, that the great 
trading area of the Levant was for the moment 
without focus. Tyre lay an utter wreck, and the 
other Phoenician cities, never in recent centuries of 
great account beside her, had been stripped lately of 
such fleets as they had. It might have been patent 
to less than Alexander, that, if Greeks were to seize 
this favourable occasion, it must be done by settling at 
a point not already occupied ; and that, if Greeks and 



ALEXANDRIA IN EGYPT 189 

Macedonians were to coalesce into a Hellenistic nation, 
there was no land on the eastern Mediterranean left 
so open to mixed colonization as the Egyptian. 
Racial fusions, be it observed, were quite within the 
scope of the political foresight of Alexander's day. 
Greek colonies for three centuries had supplied an 
object lesson in the feasibility of such fusions and 
the rapid gathering of strength which ensued upon 
them. To plant rival sections of one race on a new 
soil, in the sure hope that their old dissensions 
would be forgotten, was not much beyond what had 
been the notorious policy of many Greek lawgivers 
and of the Apolline priests. In the event, Alexandria 
in Egypt did become the scene of just such a fusion, 
and remained the capital of the resultant Hellenistic 
nationality. 

Did Alexander, however, consciously found it for 
nation-making ? He founded it, assuredly, for some 
special reason or other, as he had created his first 
Alexandria to guard the defiles north and south of 
the bay of Iskenderun. He selected for the second 
the one possible site on the Egyptian coast 1 for a 
great port, as all previous and later experience has 
gone to prove. For the new harbour must lie outside 
the reach of the Nilotic silt ; therefore not on the 
Delta coast-line. It must be sheltered from the west, 

1 A great authority on Ptolemaic Egypt lias recently called this 
fact in ajiestion. Surely a moment's consideration of the peculiar 
conditions of a Delta coast, and a glance at the Admiralty charts of 
this particular Delta littoral, leave no doubt, even to one who has not 
surveyed the district with his own eyes (see Mahaffy, Empire of the 
Ptolemies, p. 11). 



190 ALEXANDER 

the prevailing wind in the Levant; therefore no 
point on the exposed shore trending north-east from 
Pelnsium would serve. It must be, lastly, within 
reach of sweet Nile water ; therefore it could hardly 
be placed farther west than Rhacotis. The site 
now chosen was eminently defensible, having Lake 
Mareotis in the rear ; and the tradition of history 
has ascribed unanimously to Alexander a personal 
share in, and solicitude for, the inaugurating of this 
Egyptian city, of which no mention is made in 
connection with any other of his foundations. And 
reasonably ; for Egypt beyond a doubt held a peculiar 
place in Alexander's affections, as the land of the 
particular God by whom he secretly fancied himself 
to have been begotten. 

Alexander, then, may be assumed to have in- 
tended his Alexandria in Egypt to be an important 
harbour ; but important to what end ? As the key 
of Egypt? Yet he kept his main garrison always 
at Memphis. As a gate whereby Greek trade of 
the old type might enter the Nile valley ? For that 
alone a new foundation was scarcely needed ; Nau- 
cratis had existed long, and long continued to exist. 
But to gather in a wider commerce ? If that end be 
allowed, then it must follow that Alexandria was 
created as a direct consequence of the ruin of Tyre, 
and was intended to be a new focus for the Levant : 
and even if Alexander did not consciously create a 
new capital to concentrate a new mixed nationality — 
though such a purpose was neither beyond the scope 
of his intelligence, nor anything but consonant with 



ALEXANDER AND COMMERCE 191 

his general policy — the fact will stand that consciously 
he created a new local capital for commerce. 1 And, 
surely, to do that is to open the door to so many 
possibilities of expansion, that the Founder of such 
a city, if it prosper, may claim credit for the greatness 
and wealth which have followed on his action. 

The conception thus ascribed to Alexander is no 
way incredible on circumstantial evidence. For, first, 
such commercial aims in colonization had been in 
the Greek air for centuries, and Alexander would 
have been perfectly familiar with them, even had 
he not sat at the feet of the greatest of Greek 
economists : and, second, in his subsequent career 
the Founder of Alexandria will give ample proof 
that he was indeed familiar with economic questions, 
and had a vivid interest and belief in the influence of 
commerce. His instructions to Nearchus before he 
left the Indus ; his removal of the obstructions in 
the Tigris water-way ; 2 his proposal to create a second 
Phoenicia on the shore of the Persian Gulf 3 — these 
are instances of a single-minded commercial purpose, 
which conditioned also, but less directly, many other 
enterprises, the explorations, for example, of the 
Caspian, the Persian Gulf, and the Indus, and pro- 
bably the foundation of all the Eastern colonies, 

1 Cf. Econ. ii. 33, for the reflection of a contemporary view of the 
Founder's purpose (whether by Aristotle or another). Even Niese 
admits that Alexandria was intended " den Verkehr mit Griecbenland 
und Makedonien zu vermitteln und eine siehere Yerbindung Agyptens 
mit diesen Landern zu gewahren " (p. 85). 

2 Strabo, p. 740 ; Arrian, vii. 7. 
8 Arr. vii. 19. 



192 ALEXANDER 

whose representatives survive still as ganglia in 
Asia's nerve system of caravan roads. Hereby we 
are ascribing to Alexander no prophetic view of 
the regeneration of Asia or the mission of the Hel- 
lene, indeed no altruistic motive at all. His was 
simply a highly enlightened selfishness, which, having 
conquered by the sword, knew it could possess in 
permanence only by fostering the influences of peace. 
To Alexander commerce and Hellenism were means 
not ends, means indeed far from clearly grasped or 
understood ; but in so far as he did grasp and under- 
stand them, his is the glory to all time of having 
applied on a great scale for whatever end the greatest 
influences for peace in the world of his day. 

If any further proof were needed that we have to 
reckon already with an advanced student of state- 
craft in the Founder of Alexandria, it can be supplied 
by the organization which he imposed in this same 
winter on the whole province of Egypt. AYe are 
allowed to see only its skeleton, and to detect 
little more than its singularity — a singularity which 
proves that, however he may have learned them, 
Alexander certainly knew those unique difficulties 
which Egypt presents to foreign occupation. With 
marsh at one end and tropics at the other, eight 
hundred miles of deserts on its either flank, and itself 
nowhere more than thirty miles in breadth, the 
Nile valley has called always for a peculiar scheme 
of government. Arrian is probably right in saying 
that the Macedonian system, with its lack of an all- 
powerful supreme official, its three nationalities set 



THE EXPEDITION TO AMMON 193 

one against the other, and its counteracting civil and 
military powers, anticipated in some ways the Roman. 
For if Augustus, who indeed was a professed disciple 
of Alexander, had needed a model for the imperial 
settlement of the Nile valley, he would have looked, 
not to any Ptolemaic king who had ruled Egypt 
from within, but to the first western emperor who 
had held it as a foreign possession. 

But this precocious Founder and craftsman in 
politics has not forsworn yet all the dreams of his 
youth. Between creating a city and organizing a 
province, he is capable of the romantic folly of the 
expedition to the oracle of Amnion. 

What can be said certainly of this folly ? Hardly 
more than that indeed Alexander went to the 
Amnion Temple. He can have made no general 
announcement either of what he asked its priests or 
of what they replied. 1 For the rest, the record of 
this expedition is shrouded in inconsistency and myth. 
As Arrian's two best authorities 2 insisted on distinct 
routes for Alexander's return from the Oasis, we may 

1 Cf. Arrian, iii. 4 ad fin., and Plutarch's quotation (Alex. 27) 
from Alexander's letter to bis mother, speaking of the "secret 
answers which he will tell on his return to her alone." 

2 On Arrian's authorities for the Anabasis, and indeed on the 
wbole subject of the Quelle//, see Frankel's monumental work 
(Preslau, 1883), and lesser and more recent inquiries by K. Peters- 
dorff, Eine neue Hauptqnelle des Q. Curtius, etc. (Hanover, 1884) ; 
E. Pridik, Be A. M. epistularum commcrcio (1893) ; and A. 
Zumetikos, Be A. Oh/mpiadisque epist. fontibus et reliqum (1894). 
Niese devotes a section to the subject, but hardly attempts 
criticism. 

13 



194 ALEXANDER 

infer with some confidence that neither chronicler 
accompanied him. And with almost equal confidence 
it can be maintained that the expedition was a small 
affair that assumed little importance at the time, but 
came to be subject of general gossip at some later 
period, when recollection of the facts was confused 
and vague. Whether Alexander, when he started 
along the coast from Mareotis, was making indeed 
for Amnion, or not rather for Cyrene — even this 
must remain uncertain ; for his historians dismiss 
with a mere mention the submission of the greatest 
Greek colony in Africa, which was made to him on 
his way. 1 How did those Cyrenian envoys come so 
aptly to Paraetonium ? Their city must have been 
summoned to surrender, or have been fearful of an 
attack. Paraetonium, be it remarked, lies a good 
deal further west than the usual point at which a 
caravan leaves the coast and strikes across the desert 
to the oasis of Siwah ; and indeed had Alexander had 
merely Siwah for objective, his natural road had lain 
not by the north at all, but through the Fayum. 

Let the conjecture, then, be hazarded for what it 
is worth, that if indeed a large force went with the 
king to Paraetonium, on receipt of the Cyrenian 
submission the most part of it was sent back ; 
and Alexander seized the occasion to fulfil an old 
ambition by going to Siwah. He struck inland 
with a small party, such as alone can traverse 
so much waterless desert ; and since no chronicler of 

1 Diod. xvii. 49. Arrian omits, but Curtius (iv. 7. 9) confirms 
Diodorus. 



ALEXANDER'S PURPOSE 195 

his acts was included in his following, the Alexander 
of history melts into the Iskender of romance until 
such time as he reaches Memphis again. 

The obvious purpose of Alexander, as Pharaoh, 
was to pay a visit of ceremony to his official Father, 
Amen. His added secret object was to ask a par- 
ticular question as to his own carnal origin. All 
tradition agrees on this last point. Likely enough. 
Olympias had worked on a mind already full of 
romantic Homeric ideas. His father had publicly 
called him bastard. Was he, then, after all, like 
one of the Heroes, god-begotten on a mortal woman ? 
It is not impossible that, in this matter, Alexander 
was doing no more than the behest of his mother; 
for he himself mostly made scant account of oracles 
and divinations, unless they chanced to agree with 
a policy preconceived. As a boy, he had treated 
cavalierly even the Pythia. As a man, he refused 
to listen when a soothsayer forbade his venture 
across the Sir Daria ; he committed palpable fraud 
with the auspices to save his dignity at the Sutlej ; 
and replied with scornful sarcasm to the last warn- 
ings of the prophets of Bel. Why, however, Alex- 
ander chose to ask his question of Amen of the 
Oases rather than of Amen of the mother-shrine 
at Karnak must remain doubtful until we learn 
more of the religious connections between Egypt 
and Europe at this period. 1 

1 Prof. G. Maspero, in a recent article {Comment A. le G. devlnt 
dlen en "Egypte, in the Annuaire cle I'Ecole pratique des Hautes 
fitudes, 1897), explains Alexander's choice of Siwah simply by the 



196 ALEXANDER 

None of the authorities, however, on whom Arrian 
relied, knew what passed in the Holy of Holies. 
Later gossip was better informed — not impossibly 
by report of Alexander's own loose talk with inti- 
mate friends. It is certain, at least, that publicly 
and officially Alexander remained son of Philip 1 
till his death, and found no greater inconsistency 
in asserting his private belief that Ammon had 
indeed begotten him, than Queen Hatasu or Amen- 
hotep III., being children respectively of Thothmes I. 
and Thothmes IV., found in depicting on their 
temple walls at Der el Bahari and Luxor a legend 
of their miraculous begetting by Amen. 

Certain historians, however, have laboured to 
elevate Alexander's expedition to Siwah into the 

familiarity of the Greeks with the god of the Oases, as compared 
with their ignorance of Thebes. This does not, however, go far 
enough. Why in the first instance was Ammon of Siwah so 
familiar to Greek legend? For the rest, Prof. Maspero's learned 
and ingenious article is a most welcome contribution to this 
question. The author, as an Egyptologist, examines the ritual 
observed on these ceremonial visits of Pharaohs to their Father, 
Amen ; and from his point of view he reaches much the same 
conclusion as to the significance of Alexander's visit as is 
expressed above, namely, that no exceptional public policy was 
involved. At most the new Pharaoh was legitimized for Egypt 
by a dogma of miraculous conception, like Queen Hatasu, 
Amenhotep ITT., and later, Caesarion. Prof. Maspero's expla- 
nation of the euhemeristic genesis of the Nectanebo myth agrees 
with my own, published in January, 1896, in the Eng. Hist. 
Review. 

1 Cf. his letters to Darius and to the Athenians (Plut. Alex. 28), 
and also Arr. ii. 5 ; iii. 3 ; iv. 8 ; vi. 3, in all of which passages 
reference is made to his Heraclid descent, of course through 
Philip. 



DEIFICATION 197 

inception of a great policy. The king, say they, about 
to proceed to the East, and already desirous of exalta- 
tion above his Macedonians and Greeks, deliberately 
assumed divine character as son of Amen. Mis- 
placed ingenuity ! Every king of Egypt had been 
son of Amen since the growth of Thebes. The last 
Nectanebo, as well as the first Ptolemy, bear the 
title on their inscriptions equally with Alexander. 
In Egypt sonship to Amen was so far from being 
an exception, that it could not be escaped by a 
Pharaoh. Outside Egypt it was useless. Who, 
beyond Pelusium, worshipped Amen, or, beyond 
Euphrates, even knew his name ? 

Furthermore, evidence lacks wholly for the divine 
style, least of all with any express statement of son- 
ship to Amnion, being used officially by Alexander ; or 
for such " divine honours " as Persians paid or Greeks 
decreed being rendered as to the son of the Egyptian 
god. The men of the East prostrated themselves 
to Alexander as to all their princes ; and when the 
Macedonian demanded the same adoration from men 
of the West, it was not as son of Ammon, but as 
Emperor, that there might be no invidious distinction 
among his subjects. 

Moreover, with respect to this matter two things 
must be distinguished sharply, which usually are 
confused : * a claim, however publicly made, by 

1 I did not keep them distinct myself in an article written in part 
as an undergraduate, and published in the Eng, Hist. Review, April, 
1887. J. P. Mahaffy confuses them also in ais criticism of that 
article in Problems of Greek History, p. 165 ff. 



198 ALEXANDER 

Alexander to be of divine parentage is one thing ; the 
institution by him of any cult of himself is wholly 
another. In Greek mythology, it should be borne 
in mind, the first of these things did not involve 
the second. Neither was x\chilles worshipped in the 
Greek camp, nor Aeneas in the Trojan, because they 
had goddesses to their mothers. Alexander himself, 
although his Macedonian royalty and the manner of 
his life led him to assert personality in a manner 
foreign to Greek civic usage, and even to give his 
name to cities, appears to have introduced no effigy 
of himself on to his coinage. In his lifetime we never 
hear of his temples, altars, groves or games, such as 
not a generation later were dedicated to the living 
Demetrius. Greek adulation suggested the paying 
of divine honours to Alexander more than once, 
but the supposed prompting of these by an Imperial 
Decree rests on an inference so indirect from a 
statement historically so worthless that one can only 
wonder how it has found a place in the creed of 
a responsible historian. 1 

There is, in short, hardly any question of public 
policy involved. Alexander went to Siwah purposing 
little more than to test a romantic belief which he 
owed to Homer, and in diverse ways to both his 
parents ; and ever afterwards he hugged to himself 
the belief that the Egyptian Zeus was not only his 

1 Practically it ivsts only on a passage in Aelian, V. II. ii. 19. 
See my article quoted supra, in which I have given every shred of 
evidence. Grote, at any rate, little as he loves Alexander, omits the 
whole question of th'3 Decree as not worth serious discussion. 



THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER 199 

official but his fleshly father. In moments of con- 
fidence and moments of exaltation, such as became 
more frequent as his imperial position developed, 
there can be no doubt that he made a boast of 
this divine origin, and thereby gave a handle to 
malcontents, and maybe some difficulty to himself 
in junctures when it was expedient to make appeal 
to his dynastic feudal position. It was a foolish 
fancy, no doubt, incompatible with the more advanced 
thought of his time, but quite consistent with the 
belief of older fashion that gods were really existent 
in human form with human passions. 

This much may be granted ; but it cannot be 
conceded by historical truth that Alexander seated 
himself even in imagination on Olympus, as ywaesens 
dens. He never pretended that his veins distilled 
ichor, claimed supernatural powers, 1 or affected to be 
fed by the smoke of altar fires. Had he cherished 
such delusions or made such pretensions, his earthly 
success had never been attained. His wildest imagi- 
nation did no more than set him among the half-divine 
Heroes : his sober reason claimed that he was godlike 
man, one of those noblest mortals who in a peculiar 
sense are sons of the common Father. 2 

And with this let us leave an incident possessed 
of no great import nor grave result, and unworthy 
of much attention, were it not that in such affairs 
as this — by his sick-bed at Tarsus, or in the Queens' 
tent at Issus — we get a passing glimpse of Alexander 
in an atmosphere less artificial than that of the 
1 Cf. Plut. Alex. 17. 2 Plut. Alex. 27. 



200 ALEXANDER 

Council chamber, and for once not obscured by the 
dust and blood of the battle-field. 

In Egypt Alexander had received tidings that 
his admirals had triumphed on the Aegean, where, 
since the fall of Phoenicia, they had been able to 
take the offensive. The submission of Cyrene had 
completed their conquest, and the rising walls of 
Alexandria were to assure the enjoyment of its 
fruit. With the sea went one half of the Persian 
realm : it remained to win the other half. To 
accomplish this second part of his primary scheme, 
Alexander inarched out of Egypt in the spring of 
331. He assured himself, in passing, of the com- 
plete humility of Tyre — caution significant in the 
Founder of Alexandria ! — and reached the Euphrates 
late in July. Neither there, nor in rounding the 
head of the Mesopotamian Desert, nor during the 
five days that his army was ferrying itself painfully 
over Tigris, was he opposed seriously. The Persian 
outposts fell back so weakly from every point of 
vantage, that it seems as if their commander, 
Mazaeus, had begun already to serve the new master, 
for whom afterwards long and faithfully he governed 
Babylon. 

The Great King was waiting beyond Tigris, on 
the threshold of the inner half of his realm. He 
lay at a point where great roads come together, 
those from farther Asia through Hamadan and 
Tabriz, that from Babylon and the Gulf, those 
from the Armenian gorges of the Tigris, and from 



THE ADVANCE RESUMED 201 

the West by the way Alexander himself had marched. 
It is this concurrence that gives importance still to 
Mosul, and determined in the dawn of history the 
site of Nineveh. But already, in this year 331, 
Nineveh was a forgotten ruin, and the great battle 
which decided the fate of the East, though fought 
almost within sight of the famous Assyrian mounds, 
has taken its popular name, not from the once 
imperial city nor from the nearest village, but from 
Arbela, an obscure local capital situate sixty miles 
away : and " of Arbela," in defiance of geographical 
purists, this battle will be to the end of time. 

A glance at Arrian's list of the Persian array 
will show how much more formidable that host must 
have been on its own chosen ground, than any 
that Alexander hitherto had encountered. Grouped 
round a nucleus of Greek veteran swashbucklers 
more numerous than all the Macedonian force, were 
the picked guerilla fighters of the warlike East, 
all in enormous strength : — masses of those nomads 
of Turkestan, accustomed to fight in hordes, who 
were hereafter to give Alexander much trouble ; 
Pathans and hillmen from Chitral and Khond and all 
the range of Hindu Kush against whom four years 
later the Macedonians w r ould have to fight every mile 
of their way ; wild mountaineers of southern Persis, 
Lars and Lurs and Kurds and Bedawin from the 
Mesopotamian and Arabian wastes. Decisive defeat 
alone would find out their want of a real principle 
of cohesion : undefeated they were most formidable. 
For even had the host contained elements less warlike, 



202 ALEXANDER 

its mere weight brought to bear in an open plain, the 
sheer butcher's work that must be done to break it 
up, caused it to present a terribly difficult problem in 
the days of direct charging and hand-to-hand battle. 
The gravity of his danger did not escape Alexander. 
The dare-devil youth, who had rushed across Granicus 
and turned hot-foot and jubilant to meet his pursuers 
in the defile of Issus, is seen now displaying the 
caution of a veteran. With Tigris and Euphrates 
behind him, mountain and desert hemming him in, 
he must win outright, or be trampled in retreat 
under the hoofs of a cloud of horsemen. 

The preliminaries of this most famous fight of 
antiquity display the Captain at his best. Most 
cautiously he moved four inarches along the Babylon 
road, and having met and driven in the first scouting 
parties of the foe, called a halt, to collect information, 
rest his army, purge away all non-combatants, and 
fortify a camp. He could afford to take his time. 
A host, such as that opposed to him, neither would 
nor could be moved at short notice. At the second 
watch of the fourth night his columns, selected and 
stiffened, set out again, having some eight miles to 
cover, and hoping to be within touch of an unready 
foe at dawn. But from the top of the last range 
of hills the Persian army was perceived in the plain 
of Gaugamela, ordered already in line of battle. 
Alexander once more gave the order to bivouac : for 
he was in a very strong position, and might well 
wait yet another day to study the ground and the 
dispositions of the mighty host below. Thus the last 



EVE OF ARBELA 203 

daylight of September passed away, the Macedonians 
resting for the most part, the Persians nervously 
standing to their arms ; and as the night falls Plutarch, 
with a rare graphic touch, sketches on his canvas the 
great plain kindling to the horizon with myriad bar- 
barian fires, and the flare of the torches carried before 
the Great King as he passed restlessly up and down 
his lines. The hum of the immense multitude rose 
to the Macedonian posts on the hill-tops, and old 
Parmenio, mindful of many fights, gazed over the 
limitless vista of fires, and listened to the confused 
roar that came down the niyrht wind. How could 
the little army behind him overcome in equal fight 
by clay that swarming host ? It seemed madness 
to await the morning light, and he turned to the 
royal tent to urge a night attack, the counsel of 
despair. The king cut short his argument with a curt 
reply, that must have astonished the veteran student 
of strategy, " Alexander will steal no victories ! " 

Not a moment for theatrical phrases, it might be 
said ! but indeed no moment is adapted better for 
them than the eve of a battle, and no audience will 
be so responsive as an army waiting the signal to 
attack. Moreover, sound policy was expressed in this 
phrase, as Arrian, commander of Roman frontier 
legions, perceived. For the iron Macedonian discipline 
would have counted but little in a night attack, and 
the practised soldier have been almost on a par with 
the brigand. A victory half won in the dark might 
well have been followed by a rally at dawn, and the 
weary Macedonian army would have found itself still 



204 ALEXANDER 

opposed by scarcely diminished myriads. And even 
were final and complete victory granted, its moral 
effect under such circumstances would be so little as 
by no means to ensure the breaking up of Darius' 
host. In sober reason, it was better that the attack 
on such odds should be delivered with every resource 
of the parade ground, the General being able to 
discern the critical moments over all the field ; and 
that victory, wherever declaring itself, should be 
victory patent to all. 

The argument with his Marshal and the decision 
forced upon him seem to have cleared Alexander's 
mind. Dawn found him sleeping. Uneasy generals 
gathered about his tent ; surely the fight was to be 
that day, and yet even the signal for the army to 
breakfast had not been given ! The Marshal bade 
the bugle sound the call ; but the king still slept on, 
and Parmenio, having called him repeatedly by name 
without success, ventured at last to awake him with 
his hand. " How is it," protested the Marshal, " that 
thou, who so often surprisest the watch, canst sleep 
on such a morning as this ? " "I have followed 
Darius up and down through all Asia," said Alexander, 
" and shall I not sleep now when he is given into my 
hand ? " 

Of the great battle, which has made the first day 
of October an anniversary famous for all time, a 
civilian had best say little more than that its course 
justified all Alexander's previous caution, and that 
never did the Grand Army owe more to the man who 
had given them their military training, and to his 



BATTLE OF AB.BELA 205 

son who led them now. Far out-flanked, at one time 
almost surrounded, cut off for three parts of the day 
from their only support, the entrenched camp, they 
remained steady as on the parade ground by the 
Vardar. No battle in antiquity is described so fully 
as this of Arbela, and historians have not known 
which most to admire, the confidence of the western 
army, or the skill with which it was directed ; the 
discipline which opened the ranks to let scythed 
chariots thunder harmlessly through, or the temper 
with which the left wing, cut off and ridden over, 
recovered itself before help came. 

There is a story told by Curtius of the awful 
night that followed, when a rout of half a million 
men went roaring through the dust to the Zab, which, 
if true, shows how the spirit of dare-deviltry was latent 
always in the cool calculator of chances. It is said 
that, the fever of that chase seizing him, Alexander 
himself rode fast and far into the night, and turn- 
ing back at last with only a remnant of his staff 
was confronted by a large body of the flying foe. 
The barbarians saw their chance, and bore down 
upon the Conqueror. But Alexander, taking up 
the Homeric part, spurred at the leader, and having 
struck him down engaged with fury the next man 
and the next. The barbarians rode ten to one, but 
Victory herself seemed to sit on the Macedonian's 
helm. The fugitives wavered, Alexander and his 
band pressed their advantage, and their foes turned 
and fled once more into the dark. 

Darius got clear away to the eastward through 



206 ALEXANDER 

Zagros, and so to Hamadan ; his vast army dispersed 
to its deserts and hills at the four winds of heaven. 
Both king and army were ignored by the Conqueror 
as absolutely as after Issus : for Alexander for his 
part kept on straight to the south, pursuing his pre- 
dominant purpose to assume methodically and in 
permanence the Persian lands. Babylon, which had 
nearly proved a Capua, but for his prompt action — 
action not to be forgotten when, mindful of Hannibal, 
we estimate the issue of the struggle between Rome 
and the Macedonian that was never fought — Susa, 
Persepolis, the southern capitals with their stores of 
bullion, were swept into the net, and almost a year 
elapsed ere Alexander troubled himself again about 
the Great King. 

Indeed, as a single expression, the Persian Empire 
had ceased to exist. Alexander never met again an 
imperial army. For the future his affair was to be 
with the levies of irresponsible satraps or frontier 
kings, and the half-independent hill men and nomads. 
The campaigns of the rest of his life are, in fact, 
precisely such as the Persian kings had always had 
to wasre from time to time for the holding of their 
outlying provinces or the securing of their communi- 
cations. And he himself seems to have understood 
that this was to be ; for in the camp outside Babylon 
he made changes, for the first time, in the organization 
of the military machine he had inherited ; in fact, he 
took there first steps towards multiplying units in the 
interest of detachment and mobility, and towards that 



ALEXANDER'S CHANGED POSITION 207 

denationalization which gradually he would promote 
in his eastern campaigns. Later events gave to his 
aims an extension and scope not as yet conceived • but 
in the obscure allusions of Arrian and Curtius we may 
espy at Babylon in 331 the birth of ideas which were 
in fair way to be realized in 323 at Babylon again. 

There was, however, more involved than a military 
idea. The little cloud was rising no bigger than 
a man's hand. Alexander's position towards the 
different elements in his army and realm had been 
from the first ambiguous. He was officially both 
King of Macedon and Federal Captain-General of the 
Hellenes ; but neither the habitual attitude of his 
Macedonians towards his Greeks, nor of his Greeks 
towards his Macedonians, was consistent with the 
relation in which each stood to the General. Alex- 
ander had started for Asia with good hope that the 
ambiguity would disappear as by common service 
and common interest a single Hellenistic nation was 
evolved, over which he himself would reign as freely 
accepted sovereign. The attitude of the Hellenes in 
Greece had raised, as we have seen, a first difficulty ; 
the attitude of the elder Macedonians was now 
raising a second. The party which Parmenio led 
had no panhellenic ideals. They would have had 
Alexander even as Philip and his forefathers had 
been — feudal king of the Macedonians, conqueror of 
the Greeks if he would, and of the Persians if he 
could. Their chief had urged acceptance of Darius' 
terms after Issus, seeing no larger question involved 
than acquisition of territory, and fearful that further 



208 ALEXANDER 

conquest might shift the centre from Macedon. " I 
would accept, were I Alexander," said the old Marshal. 
" And I, if I were Parmenio," replied the King, well 
knowing how radically their points of view diverged, 
and why. 1 For there had been many mutterings 
among the Macedonians, as we are to learn hereafter ; 
and an actual outbreak with the Greeks took place, 
it is said, on the field of Issus. 

Alexander, indeed, had no idea of remaining 
Macedonian King. His ambition demanded a much 
more catholic position ; and his sympathy, unlike 
Philip's, was not really with his ruder subjects. 2 For 
these reasons he had begun the advance as Captain 
of all the Hellenes ; but the adhesion of the wider 
nationality was so little spontaneous, wherever mili- 
tary duty and the magnetism of his own presence did 
not have effect, that the title soon proved to be 
little worth. Now at Babylon a dignity, still more 
catholic, in which Macedonian kingship and Hellenic 
hegemony would alike be absorbed, was beginning to 
loom in his mental vision. 3 Always as he advanced, 4 

1 Diodorus (xvii. 39) tells us that Alexander suppressed the actual 
letter of Darius when it came up for consideration in the council of 
the generals, and read a letter much less equitable. If true, this 
action shows conclusively that Alexander well knew his own aims and 
those of the Macedonians to differ, and that he feared the too sudden 
enlightenment of his vassals. 

2 Cf. Plut. Alex. 28 ; and the stoiy of the Clitus tragedy, narrated 
below, p. 231. 

8 Cf. Plut. Alex. 47, for the sympathy which young Macedonia 
showed to this idea. 

4 For, as Talboys Wheeler excellently says (Hist, of India, iii. 
p. 153), Alexander w r as, like ourselves, of " the true Aryan or 
political type of conqueror, which identifies itself with the empire it 
conquers." 



KING TO EMPEROR 209 

he widened his pantheon to receive successively 
Melkarth, and Amen, Jehovah, 1 and Bel ; and more 
and more readily he accepted natives of the East 
to rule in his newly won cities and provinces. In a 
word, Alexander was passing already, scarce knowing 
it, from. King to Emperor. 2 

The same opposition which had forced Alexander 
to the inception of this change, when redoubled and 
unified by the change itself, forced him, as we shall 
see, to develop his new position far more completely 
than at first he had contemplated. For since it com- 
pelled him to rely on all sorts and conditions of his 
subjects, it led to the breaking down of national 
privilege, and the inevitable widening of his own 
ideal. Indeed, quite as much as, if not more than, 
congenital lust of acquisition, opposition may be said 
to have led him in the end to that oecumenic 
scheme which began to take visible shape a year 
from this, and had absorbed his whole ambition ere 
his death. 3 

For the moment, however, the change worked 

1 On the often-debated question of Alexander's visit to Jerusalem, 
see Niese, op. cit. p. 83. 

2 Not merely to Great King, in the Persian sense. This cannot 
be too much insisted upon. Alexander never proposed to put 
Persians in a position of superior privilege, but of equality onlv ; 
and he obviously intended, in pursuance of a distinct policy, that a 
non-Persian capital, Babylon, should be his own centre of empire. 
(See Strabo, p. 731.) 

3 The last despatches which Alexander gave Oraterus to 
convey to Antipater, and which were opened in Cilicia on the 
news of the Emperor's death, are said to have contained a plan for 
transporting European peoples into Asia, and Asiatic into Europe 
(Diod. xviii. 4). 14 



210 ALEXANDER 

inwardly more than outwardly. If the Macedonian 
King has almost ceased to be, the Captain-General of 
Hellas is, by consequence, all the more conspicuous in 
this year. It is the year of the famous burning of 
Persepolis, with all its formal parade of restoring the 
spoil of Xerxes, and its orgy of the vengeance of 
Hellas, who spoke not inappropriately in these deca- 
dent days by the beautiful courtesan who led the 
rout. It is the year also of the surrender of Darius, 
Greeks at the Caspian, and of the Greek envoys who 
had fled with the Great King, to whom, for the last 
recorded time, Alexander solemnly proclaimed his 
Hellenic mission. But that mission was coming to 
be believed in neither by leader nor by led ; and in 
the valleys of Afghanistan it dropped, scarce re- 
marked, out of mind, the quicker, perhaps, for the 
news of the revolt of Agis and the treason trials of 
Prophthasia, but long doomed to disappear. 

The southern provinces and the treasure cities of 
the Eastern Empire had all fallen to Alexander in 
six months after Arbela, at no greater cost than a 
little hill-fighting. The north, however, as he knew 
well, was no way disposed to follow tamely the 
fortunes of the south. The Great King himself was 
still in his northern capital of Ecbatana with tiara 
erect ; the great Viceroys of the East had not deserted 
his cause ; and about him stayed still the nucleus of a 
formidable army. So long as these things were so, 
the Conqueror had realized his original scheme no 
more than his later dreams. 



PURSUIT RESUMED 211 

Alexander took up the offensive again from 
Persepolis in April, when the snows had vanished 
from the passes. At starting he seems to have 
thought that Darius would stand and fisrht near 
Hamadan. 1 That illusion was soon to be dispelled. 
There was treachery in the Persian Court, and the 
northern nomads had not responded a second time 
to the war-summons of their King. At a point three 
days south of Hamadan news reached the Macedo- 
nian army that Darius had gathered up his few thou- 
sands of men, evacuated his last capital, and gone 
north-east for the passes which lead to Meshed v 

The vast treasure left in Ecbatana compelled 
Alexander to proceed thither instead of cutting 
across to the Teheran road ; but he was determined, 
none the less, to pursue and to capture at all costs 
the person of Darius. For as previously he seems 
to have thought that another victory would secure 
the submission of the north-east, so now he took 
on the hope that the capture of the King's person 
would spare him the march into Bactria. News, 
however, came presently to Ecbatana that modified 
all his plans. Darius had been degraded to a mere 
puppet by the great Viceroys of the north-east, who 
were his keepers and proposed to be independent 
of his fate. In the interests of his own legitimate 
establishment on the Persian throne, it was still 
desirable for Alexander to possess himself of the 
person of its last Achaemenid occupant, and it was 

1 According to Curtius' authority (v. 8. 2), such indeed had been 
Darius' original intention. 



212 ALEXANDER 

more than possible that, should the stiff-backed 
Viceroys be captured with the King, after all their 
provinces would make peaceful submission. Such 
speedy success, however, could not be reckoned upon, 
and Alexander felt that now he must lay plans 
openly for a long eastern march. 

First and foremost came reorganization. In view 
of the probable duration of the coming campaign, its 
certain hardships, and the necessity, if the eastern 
provinces were to be more than overrun, of planting 
and peopling colonies far out of sight of the West, 
the feudal and political character of a large part of 
the Grand Army must be swamped as far as possible 
in the professional element. The character best 
adapted to the work that lay before the expedi- 
tionary force, was that of a Grand Company, own- 
inor no obligation but a. common tie of devotion to 
its general, his venture, and his star. The Mace- 
donians would be retained, for to follow the King 
was their simple feudal duty. The professional part 
of the Philippian army, even if not Macedonian by 
birth, could be relied on to stay by the standards, 
for it knew no other trade half so lucrative. But 
to all the allied political contingents, especially 
the Greek, which had been sent by their cities to 
assist a Crusade for which neither they themselves 
nor their Captain-General felt unmixed enthusiasm, 
there must now be offered a choice between retiring 
from further service or re-enlisting simply as soldiers 
of fortune. The most part at once took their dis- 
missal, their pay, and a regal gratuity, and set out for 



REORGANIZATION OF THE ARMY 213 

the sea. But " not a few," we are told, volun- 
teered to become Alexander's men absolutely, whether 
from love of adventure, or of prize-money, or of 
the person of the conqueror himself ; and of their 
mind will be henceforward nearly all Alexander's 
Grand Army. Its complexion is so professional that 
many of its veterans seem to have retained little 
or no desire to return to the West. The old 
Body Guard, for example, were still selling their 
services as the " Silver Shields " to this king and 
that in Asia long after Alexander had been laid in 
Memphis. 

Thus openly did Alexander prepare in Ecbatana 
for long campaigns of conquest. But still he had 
hope of saving much time and toil by overtaking 
Darius and his party before they reached the desert 
of Khorasan : and as soon as might be he started in 
pursuit with the pick of the expeditionary force. It 
is a strange chapter in history, this grim, stern chase 
of king by king in the heart of Asia - — from Hama- 
dan to Rhagae on the confines of Teheran, 1 and from 
Rhag-ae to the defiles on the borders of the desert. 
At the entrance to those defiles, in the midst of a halt 
to collect supplies, news arrived that the miserable 

1 Plutarch {Alex. 42, pace Niese, op. clt. p. 100) cannot include 
only the march to Rhagae in his eleven days, for the distance between 
Hamadan and Teheran is not above the half of what he states ; and 
we have no reason to suppose that either Alexander's rate of march- 
ing between those points, or the nature of the country traversed, 
entailed any special hardship. Plutarch evidently speaks of the 
whole march, up to the capture of Darius, and has got his distance 
right, his time wrong. 



214 ALEXANDER 

treachery ahead had reached its crisis. Darius was 
become actually a bound prisoner in the hands of his 
Viceroys, and the faithful Greek mercenaries, who 
had remained by him to the last, were gone north 
through the Elburz chain. Forthwith Alexander, 
without waiting for the return of his foraging parties, 
took all his cavalry and the most athletic of his 
footmen, and pressed forward all a night and half a 
day. A few hours' rest were followed by a second 
night of marching, and at dawn the column reached 
a deserted camp of the fugitives. Here further news 
was obtained that the Viceroys meant to give up 
their King, if pressed by the pursuit. It was no 
time for rest, and at nightfall Alexander was again in 
his saddle, and careless that men fell out and horses 
foundered, " still he drove on," until at high noon he 
found himself in a village not twenty-four hours 
behind his quarry. The Viceroys, however, were 
reported here to intend a forced march in the coming 
night; and Alexander's column had almost spent 
its effort. Was there no short way ? The villagers 
knew of a path more direct than the main road, 
bi\t it was without water. The King, without 
hesitation, unhorsed his weaker troopers, mounted 
the sturdiest of his footmen, and at dusk led up 
the short cut at a trot. 1 Fifty miles were covered 
in that night, and as dawn broke, lo! the fugitives 
were just ahead, straggling over the road, weary 

1 See Curzon, Persia, i. pp. 293 ff., on the Sirdara Pass ; and for 
a lengthy discussion of all the ancient authorities, Th. Zolling, A. des 
G. Felchug in Central Asien, pp. 93 ff. 



DEATH OF DARIUS 215 

and some unarmed. 1 There was a wild panic and 
stampede : a few rallied for a stand, but it was very 
brief. The captive King was bidden by his jailors 
to leave his waggon and mount a horse ; but he 
refused obstinately, and the sorry tragedy reached 
its catastrophe with a vengeful sword-thrust, and the 
clatter of flying hoofs. The last scene is singularly 
pathetic as Curtius finds it in authorities now lost. 2 
The driver of the Kind's waggon had fled with the 
Viceroys, and the mules, feeling the reins on their 
backs, wandered off the road, in quest of water, and 
dragged the dying man to a pool in a little lateral 
gorge. There a Macedonian rider found him, and 
mercifully gave him to drink ; and with words of 
gratitude on his lips, the gentle prince, of whom as 
man no one has said an ill word, but few will venture 
a good one as king, breathed his last. The rhetorical 
historians and the poets of the East have loved to 
imagine that Alexander found " Dara" still breathing, 
and received from his lips a legacy of empire and 
edifying moralities on the vanity of greatness ; but 
more sober chroniclers record that the Conqueror came 
up only after the end, and with some natural impulse of 
emotion covered the poor body with his cloak. 

Fortune, it has been remarked by many critics, 

1 An added motive for Alexander's haste was the fear of giving 
the Persians time to destroy supplies. Cf. Polyaenus, iv. 3. 18, for 
the similar motive for rapid pursuit after Arbela. 

2 I agree with Niese, that the earlier part of Curtius' dramatic 
narrative of the Flight is not to be taken au pied de la lettre ; but 
rather because he has antedated things than because he has related 
incidents that never occurred. 



216 ALEXANDER 

never served Alexander better than when it delivered 
into his hand Darius already dead. The Macedonian, 
say they, obtained the inheritance of the Persian 
without either the odious obligation of putting him 
to death, or the equally odious and more dangerous 
necessity of dragging an ex-king captive at his chariot 
wheels. Alexander himself, however, seems to have 
felt more chagrin than relief. So far as there was 
odium abroad, it fell as justly on him who had 
hounded the Great King to a miserable end, as on 
those who, pleading dire necessity, actually killed 
him. As a rule, on the occasion of a dynastic change 
in the East, the execution of a king dethroned does 
not follow immediately on his fall. For a time he 
may serve many ends of his conqueror ; and in such 
a captive position a man of so weak a character as 
Darius might have been of no small advantage to 
his jailor. Furthermore it must be borne in mind 
that Alexander already had in his hands a wife and 
daughter, held very dear by the fallen prince, and 
far from ill-disposed to their captor, through whose 
influence and agency the Macedonian might easily 
have been legitimized with something like the open 
consent of the fallen king, and might have used 
this consent to compel obedience from the eastern 
Viceroys. The grief, which all authorities report that 
Alexander displayed on seeing the dead Persian, 
sprang in the main, we are glad to believe, from a 
generous impulse of remorse ; but it may well have 
been embittered by the reflection that a fearful chase 
through three midsummer days and four nights had 



TURN OF THE YEAR 217 

resulted in no greater gain than this poor corpse. 
The real holders of all that Alexander had not won 
already for himself before he began the pursuit had 
made good their escape. Having made this point 
for the occasion his winning-post, the Macedonian 
had spent his last effort to reach it. His track 
was strewn with his horses and his men ; his heavy 
columns were lagging far in the rear ; and, after 
all, what could he do but lap the royal mummy in 
boughs, as still is a practice in Asia, and having sent 
it forward to the tombs of its House in Persis, go 
back slowly by the road he had come ? 

Nevertheless, although the death of Darius did 
not constitute in itself a decisive moment, historians 
have been right in regarding the summer in which 
it took place as cardinal in Alexander's career ; for 
it was then that first it became clear to all men that 
there was presently to be neither King of Macedon 
nor Captain-General of Hellas, nor Great King of 
Persia, but an Emperor of Europe and Asia. The 
little cloud of Babylon was swelling over all the sky. 
It is the turn of Alexander's year. 

He had transformed his army at Ecbatana, and by 
the time he reached the Caspian the new character 
of his following was beginning to react inevitably on 
himself. All the remainder of this year, 330, in 
which Alexander begins in patient earnest the advance 
into the Far East, overrunning Mazenderan, and 
thence following the great Indian road until winter 
overtakes him in Seistan, a shadow is spreading over 



218 ALEXANDER 

the glory of his early days. There is no decay of 
his own powers, for much that he will do hereafter 
is not more inferior to the exploits of his former 
years than the days of July to those of June. Nay, 
rather, his genius will rise to the greater occasions 
that present themselves. But as his soldiery become 
less responsible and more servile, so the Captain 
exalts himself, obtruding always more and more the 
garish aspect of his personality ; until we begin to 
lose sight of anything but his single figure loom- 
ing larger and sombre against the lurid sky of his 
evening. 

The disorder within may be known by the sore 
that breaks outwardly. An ulcer was spreading 
among the Macedonian members of the Grand 
Army. Till now, as every point in advance had 
brought gain of a rich land, or a fair city, or a 
mighty treasure, all ranks of the vassals had been 
buoyed up in toil and peril by hope presently to 
possess their souls in wealth. But hope of return 
had become hope indefinitely deferred : their king's 
ideal was growing manifestly above and beyond their 
own ; and they felt that daily their privilege became 
less, as the privilege of others became more. 

In particular, certain of the prouder Macedonian 
vassals of the elder school had begun to foresee with 
bitterness their effacement in the colossal shadow of 
Alexander, many cherishing in secret the memory 
of Philip, first and last a Macedonian, who had made 
so much of his native nobility, and now was spoken 
of lightly by the son he had not loved. Parmenio, 



DISAFFECTION AND CONSPIRACY 219 

once Philip's right hand-man in war, represented to 
this party the heroic age, and, whether he wished it 
or no, was looked to as chief. Bat he was old and 
not assertive of himself, and the habit of feudalism 
lay heavy upon him ; 1 and therefore it was upon his 
son Philotas that there fell the active lead in this 
discontent. Philotas seems to have been a man of 
little restraint and a rude manner, who, holding high 
office, ran riot in private speech against the royal 
boy, who, he said, owed everything to him and to 
his father. Certain of his words had been brought 
by a Greek girl to Alexander's ears in Egypt before 
the close of the year 332 ; 2 but partly from trust in 
Parmenio, partly, no doubt, for fear of exasperating 
a strong section of his Macedonians, the King con- 
tented himself with observing in secret, in the hope 
that common service in the Advance about to be 
resumed would gradually eliminate the malcontent 
spirit. Before long, however, having fancied himself 
to have been supported but indifferently by Parmenio's 
command at Arbela, he was moved to adopt a more 
decided policy, and to keep the old Marshal behind 
the main advance in positions where he could be 
checked by commanders of a fidelity more assured. 

The murmurs grew loud on the Caspian shore; 
for, having purged his Grand Army of all but 
volunteers, friends, and vassals, Alexander was 

1 Plutarch quotes from Callisthenes that Parmenio inwardly 
regarded anything but kindly Alexander's growing power, ambition, 
and surroundings of ceremony (Alex. 33). 

2 We have this on the best authority. Fide Arr. iii. 26. 



220 ALEXANDER 

venturing to assume something of the dress and style 
of an Asiatic, and the aloofness of an Emperor. 1 The 
hint was not lost on either Macedonians or Greeks ; 
did it not imply that the Grand Army was no 
longer of the West, but become definitively of the 
East ? Throughout a long halt at Zadracarta, and 
the subsequent inarch towards Seistan, disaffection 
gathered strength, and a certain party, which covertly 
imputed all its personal woes to the King, spoke in 
secret of poison and daggers. But there can have 
been little combination in conspiracy, for the story 
goes that matters came quite fortuitously to a 
head at Prophthasia during the winter of 330, 2 
through none other than Philotas being made privy, 
all unexpecting and involuntary, to the vapour- 
ings of a nobody. The same idle words presently 
reached Alexander's ears also, but not, as they should 
have done, from the lips of Parmenio's son. Philotas 
may or may not have been guilty of sympathy with 
the vapourer; at any rate, he had let the matter 
drift, and the King, waiting for some pretext to strike 
a decisive blow at the malcontent party, chose to 
assume his guilt. Alexander was in a stronger position 
in this far land than in Egypt, for the mass of his 
army had fallen into an absolute dependence on his 

1 Cf. Plut. Phoc. 17, for his omission henceforth of the usual 
courteous greeting to his correspondents. The fact of the Median 
royal dress, etc., is beyond question, though it seems to have been 
assumed only on certain festal or religious occasions ; e. g. at 
Maracanda, Bactra, Susa, and Opis. Turgid lies are told about it 
by such as Ephippus of Olynthus (ap. Athen. p. 537 E.). 

2 See Appendix for the chronology of the next three years. 



TREASON TRIALS 221 

life. Philotas was arrested at once, and haled before 
the general feudal assembly ; but such evidence, as 
was adduced there and then, established criminal 
negligence, hardly more. An adjournment was pro- 
claimed, and in the night Hephaestion wrested in 
the torture-chamber a confession from the son, which 
included the father's name. That evidence was more 
than enough for such a Court ; the faithful vassals, 
transported with rage, acted both as judges and 
executioners, Macedonum more, and in twelve days 
three swift dromedaries bore back, across the plains 
of Khorasan, the death-warrant of Parmenio. 1 The 
Lyncestian Alexander, who, at first a suspected 
friend, had for four years been a prisoner of state, 
was dragged forth also and put to death — a warning 
to all his tribesmen ; 2 and subsequently four or five 
intimates of Philotas were put on their trial ; but 
Alexander had been warned to accept easy satis- 
faction, 3 and the most part were dismissed scot-free. 

It was a grievous necessity, which has been 
regarded often enough as judicial murder. But if 
the ulcer of discontent was in the Army — and there 
seems no doubt that it had been spreading there these 
two years — Alexander had little choice, in view of the 
tremendous needs and risks of warfare, but to cut — 

1 Strabo, p. 724. The ordinary rate of travelling was thirty to 
forty days to Ecbatana. 

2 Diod. xvii. 80; and Curtius, vii. 1. 6. 

3 According to Curtius' authorities, there was much grumbling 
after Philotas' death (vii. 2. 10), and Alexander had to make a 
punishment battalion (cf. Diod. xvii. 80). Also the garrison of 
Ecbatana came very near open mutiny in sympathy for Parmenio. 



222 ALEXANDER 

and he cut strongly. Regicide was not spoken of 
again in the camp, except by one little group nursing 
a private grievance of the moment ; and to secure 
this immunity Alexander, after all, had taken means, 
the moral responsibility for which is not more than 
rests on any general who decimates a mutinous 
company. Let whoso sits in the seat of judgment 
on this matter remember that he has not one-tenth 
of the evidence that was before the Emperor ; and 
that he is revising the acts not of a civil, but a 
martial court. 

At the same time, while we recognize dire necessity 
in this matter, we would not maintain that the dis- 
content of the great vassals was causeless, or indeed 
anything but reasonable. The loss of privilege is a 
very bitter fruit, whose taste long remains in the 
mouth. They would have been more or less than 
men had they swallowed and smiled ! And, more- 
over, the sun of their feudal system no longer shone 
as graciously as of old. The enthusiastic boy who 
had led them out of Macedon was dragging them 
inexorably into far deserts and sky-kissing hills, 
as an irritable and uncertain despot, flaming into 
dangerous passion and collapsing into as dangerous 
remorse. His many hurts had not been suffered for 
nothing — the stroke on the neck and head in the 
Balkans, the fever at Tarsus, the stab in the thigh at 
Issus, the almost fatal bolt-wound at Gaza. Every 
change in a character such as Alexander's makes for 
intensification ; insensibility to pain becomes positive 
cruelty, impetuosity grows to foolhardiness, and 



ALEXANDER AND HIS ARMY 223 

diplomacy to deceit. The man who had wept over 
the corpse of Darius made presently so brutalizing 
an exhibition of a regicide at Balkh as to shock his 
greatest eulogists ; the cool deliberator of Arbela 
is become the almost suicide of Mooltan ; he who 
never refused quarter to surrendered foes, stains 
his record on the Swat with a massacre of men on 
parole. 1 

Fortunately, whatever the decay of his character, 
neither was Alexander's mental force nor was the abso- 
lute devotion of the rank and file to his person abated. 
He had studied to ripen that goodwill of the soldiery, 
which had been won ere he came to the throne, into 
something little less than worship, by arts which 
sympathy with fighting men enabled Philip's son to 
apply with rare success. By magnificent funerals and 
posthumous honours to those who fell in battle, by 
huge gratuities when money was flush, 2 by personal 
recognition and fellowship in all things, 3 by voluntary 
concessions such as the despatch of the married men 
from Halicarnassus to spend winter with their wives, 

1 Diod. xvii. 84. Alexander's act is condemned especially by 
Plutarch. 

2 E. g. one talent to each horseman, and ten minae to each foot- 
soldier, discharged at Ecbatana in 330 ; six minae to each Mace- 
donian horseman, five to each allied horseman, two to foot-soldiers, 
at Babylon in 331 (Diod. xvii. G3). 

8 A story is told by two authorities (Curt. viii. 4. 15, and 
Frontinus, iv. 6. 3) of Alexander restoring a frost-bitten soldier by 
seating him on his own seat by the fire. Cf. the well-known 
story of the draught of water in the desert (infra, p. 253) ; the 
debt-paying at Susa ; and Alexander's sacrifice of his own super- 
fluities in order to obtain destruction of those of his men (Plut. 
Alex. 57 ; cf. also 41). 



224 ALEXANDER 

by the confidence with which he drank the perilous 
cup at Tarsus, — by these and many other means 
Alexander bound his men's interests to his. Add 
such enthusiasm as beauty, daring, and pre-eminent 
powers will breed, and the dependence of men lost 
in a strange land ; and perhaps we shall cease to 
wonder at that marvellous temper which Alexander's 
army shows,, even in its most mutinous moods, when 
it is accepting in sorrowful silence his taunts at the 
Hyphasis, or uttering heart-broken protests at Opis. 
Many armies have made a massacre to avenge a 
general's wound, as the Macedonians did in Chitral ; 
and man}', in similar plight, might equal the wild 
joy of the phalanx at Mooltan, when its single hope 
came back from the gates of death. But how many 
veterans, who had mutinied against a particular 
decree, have accepted the same a few days later, 
unmodified in a single point, as the time-expired 
men accepted their dismissal at Opis ? 

Nothing short of such devotion will account for the 
readiness with which the Army followed whither their 
Captain, leaving Seistan in the spring of 329, was 
about to go — into the snow-blocked ranges between 
Candahar and Cabul in midwinter; through Hindu 
Kush and over the deserts of Turkestan in mid- 
summer ; up and down huge foothills of the Hima- 
laya, which European armies hardly can penetrate 
even now ; across the Punjab in the Rains ; and 
finally into that land of Gedrosia, which later Moslem 
conquerors regarded as a fit resort for the souls of 
the damned. Nothing short of such devotion will 



EASTERN COLONIZATION 225 

explain the acquiescence of so many in the sentences 
of exile which were pronounced whenever there was 
planted one of those military trading colonies, of 
which we know so little but the fact of their foun- 
dation. How large they were ; built upon what 
plan, Greek or Oriental ; endowed with what com- 
munal government — who can say ? 1 We are told 
only that at this point or that the " geographical 
eye " of the Emperor sees that a city " would become 
great and prosperous among men," and inexorably 
he details men-at-arms to build its w r alls, and a draft 
of his Macedonians or Greeks, the least fit for further 
marching, to form an official class and a garrison 
among a proletariate of camp followers and natives. 
The Europeans were not too willing. When Alex- 
ander came back through Hindu Kush in 327 b} r 
way of his yearling city of Alexandria ad Paropa- 
misum, he found it in a very unsatisfactory state. 
Two or three years later some three thousand colonists 
of the north country shook the dust of their exile 
off their feet, while over twenty thousand, after the 
Emperor's death, set out from the same region for 
the west. 2 

1 Diodorus (xvii. 83) does indeed tell us that a town at the foot 
of Hindu Kush was peopled at the first with seven thousand natives, 
and three thousand camp followers and volunteers ; but with that 
our knowledge begins and ends. 

2 See Curt. ix. 7. 1, and Diod. xvii. 99, xviii. 7, for the circum- 
stances of these movements, which seem to have led to the breaking 
off of Bactria from the rest of the empire even while Alexander was 
alive. The number of Greeks — stated even as high as forty thou- 
sand — is to be accounted for by the vei*y numerous colonies and 
garrisons in Bactria, and a large infusion of camp followers. 

15 



226 ALEXANDER 

This development of Alexander's colonial policy is 
the most interesting feature of the eastern cam- 
paigns. Out of the sixteen Alexandrias enumerated 
by Stephen of Byzantium which can be referred 
with probability to the son of Philip, not less than 
eleven are to be placed east of Persis, whilst in the 
north-east alone we are told by other authorities 
that Alexander founded at least eight cities. 1 Such 

1 Justin states that there were twelve colonies in the north-east 
(xii. 5); Strabo eight (p. 517), while Curtius mentions six in and 
about Margiana alone (vii. 10. 15). We know of only two 
individually — Alexandria ia-xarr], on the Sir Daria, near Khojend 
(Arr. iv. 4. 1 ; and Pliny, N. H. vi. 16), and Alexandria Ka-ra 
BaKTpa (Steph. Byz.), which seems to have been a foundation on 
the northern slopes of Hindu Kush, designed to watch the direct 
passes from Cabul (cf. the old reading of Pliny, A 7 ". //. vi. 23). 
But Hephaestion's commission, -ras iv rfj SoySianrj 77-dA.eis awoudCav 
(Arr. iv. 16. 3), implies a larger number ; and the high figures 
given {e.g. by Diod. xviii. 7) for the total of the subsequent 
mutineers supports the statement of Strabo, and even that of 
Justin. Pliny (N. H. vi. 16) explicitly states that Alexander 
founded a colony also in the oasis of Margiane, i. e. Merv ; which 
was destroyed by the Turkmans, and then reconstituted by 
Antiochus. This deliberate assertion has been much called in 
question, simply because it is hard to see how or when Alexander 
himself can have gone to Merv. But it is quite unnecessary to 
assume that no Alexandrian colony was founded without Alex- 
ander's presence. There are definite instances to the contrary, e.g. 
in Sogdiana itself Hephaestion was sent out to plant colonies 
(Arr. iv. 16. 3), and Leonnatus had a similar mission in Beluchis- 
tan (Pliny, N. II. vi. 23). A priori it is most probable that Alex- 
ander would have taken pains to secure the most direct road from 
the west to his Sogdian province, and the colony may very well have 
been founded by an expedition sent from Balkh in 328 (possibly 
that referred to by Curtius as going to the urbs Margiana, round 
which six colonies were planted, vii. 10. 15 : Curtius would in 
that case be wrong in representing that Alexander himself led 
the expedition; but such a mistake is very natural to a careless 



t 



AGENCIES OF PEACE 227 

development, however, was in practice rather than 
theory. Whereas in the west of the new empire city 
life existed already full grown, and new centres 
needed to be created only at certain important key- 
positions, Alexander found such organizations almost 
non-existent in the basins of the Oxus and the Indus, 
and was forced to create them new in the interests 
of imperial unification. In districts open to nomad 
raids and hill brigandage, communication and com- 
merce cannot be maintained without strong cities not 
far apart ; and we may credit Alexander with some 
inkling at least of what Imperial Rome afterwards 
understood so clearly, that nothing settles rude and 
wandering tribes like open markets and the introduc- 
tion of an attractive apparatus of civilization. 1 It 
may be recalled that it was in the west only that 
Rome, when her time came, had such work as this 
to do ; for the east, thanks to Alexander, and to suc- 
cessors working on Alexander's ideas, was organized 
already as she would have wished to have it. It 
was the chief glory of the Delphian Apollo that he 
fostered the birth of cities ; and to all time it will 
be the chief glory of Alexander that not only did he 

chronicler of a single hero's deeds). Or the city might have 
owed its origin to the generals who marched up to Balkh with 
reinforcements in December, 328. The Hellenistic sites in these 
remote regions are not satisfactorily identified yet, but their 
number and size are attested by the large finds of Graeco-Baetrian 
antiquities, which have found their way to India and Russia 
in recent years. On F. v. Schwarz's book on Turkestan, see 
Appendix, p. 299. 

1 See Arr. Lid. 40, for Alexander's policy in the hill-country ot 
Persis. 



228 ALEXANDER 

select a unique site in familiar Egypt, but on the 
unknown map of Central Asia 1 chose situations 
for great cities so wisely that their importance 
survives to this day with little change of locality 
in Herat, Farrah, Candahar, Ghazni, Cabul, and 
Khojend ! 2 

As the Conqueror moves east and north from 

1 Unfortunately we are left very much in the dark as to the 
amount of information which Alexander or his father may have 
possessed before setting out to conquer the East. Xenophon and 
traditions of the Ten Thousand would serve for the road up to 
Babylon. Plutarch, moreover, tells a story of the conqueror as a 
boy closely questioning as to roads and distances a Persian em- 
bassy sent to his father. Eoute-notes of returned Greek envoys 
may have been collected, giving indications as far as Ecbatana. 
But Alexander's surprise, expressed some years later than this, 
that envoys from Europe should be able to reach him more quickly 
in Media by way of the Black Sea than by the way of Asia Minor 
or Phoenicia, does not imply much idea of the lie of the land. 
Similarly his delusions about the Caspian, about the country 
beyond the Jaxartes, and about the identity of the Indus with 
the Nile, and his ignorance of the outflow of the Five Rivers, 
show complete fog as to the Eastern map. The capture of the 
Persian Records must have put him in possession of official infor- 
mation as to distances between centres of administration, ere he 
went north-east, and he seems to have had with himself a body of 
•men — the " Bematistae " — who concerned themselves with routes; 
but whether to lay out a line of march beforehand, or only to meas- 
ure it as it was being traversed, we do not know. At least they 
recorded the distances covered. Alexander had also engineers with 
him, but mainly for siege purposes. Another obscure point is his 
commissariat, if indeed he had any. The facts recorded of his 
Gedrosian march make it appear as if the army was expected to live 
on what it could collect day by day. Out of the large number of 
Greek camp followers, however, from whom Alexander largely peo- 
pled his eastern colonies, there may have been many sutlers and 
vendors of provision. 

2 See Appendix, p. 297. 



FORCES OF EARTH 229 

Seistan, the scene grows, with the man, more tremen- 
dous. The Hindu Kush interposes its stupendous 
wall, the Desert spreads its deathly sands, and the 
mighty stream of Oxus rolls across his path ; but 
all are vain. The mere distances that Alexander 
covers in this vast region of Central Asia excite our 
interest, rather than the driving of Turkman hordes 
into the desert, and incessant fighting among hill 
forts ; and even the chain of cities which he created 
to far Khojend, and the provincial organization which 
after three campaigns he imposed from Balkh to 
Samarcand, 1 remain so unknown to us by anything 
but the fact of their long survival, that they fail to 
divert attention from the personality of their creator, 
forcing his tireless way even to the Sir Daria, the 
uttermost limit of the Persian Empire, and, in his 
belief, of Asia. For beyond it he found Scythians 
whom he thought to be Scythians of Europe, and a 
little farther on saw in fancy the girdle of the whole 
world, Homer's Stream of Ocean, of which he had 
been told the Caspian was but a bay. Presently 
would end, thought he, -f) olKovfxevr), the world of 
human life, beyond which could lie only the region 
behind the sun, such a land of spirits and demons 
as afterwards the Greeks credited him with having 
explored — so far out of their ken lay the steppes 
of Turkestan and the plains of the Punjab ! 

1 That he did create such an organization might be inferred 
indirectly from the fact of the subsequent kingdom's existence; 
hut the summoning of the Hyparehs to council in 328 (Arr. iv. 1), 
supplies direct evidence. 



230 ALEXANDER 

No sooner, however, was Alexander at this limit of 
earth than the land rose behind hiin, and he was 
forced to reconquer. With a rapidity and energy 
which he never excelled, but a severity harsher than 
his earlier wont, he inflicted, ere summer ended, 
a signal chastisement on the northern strongholds, 
and then, partly in bravado, and partly to assure 
the rising walls of a new city, destined to become 
Khojend, he threw himself across even the Sir Daria 
itself, and rode for a day against the astounded 
nomads of the Mogul Dagh, contracting by foul 
water a dysenteric flux, from which he was hard 
put to it to recover. 

Almost a whole year, however, had to be spent 
in desultory campaigns before the back of the revolt 
was broken finally. With vast deserts to west, 
and the huge gorges leading eastward to the Roof 
of the World, Sogdiana and Bactria offered too many 
refuges to rebel chieftains to be brought under at 
the first attempt. The western wastes, after one 
serious reverse — the worst that ever befell Alexander's 
forces (lie himself was not present) — w r ere cleared 
readily enough, and cruel revenge was taken on the 
fertile valley of the Saravshan ; but the hill forts of 
the east occupied all an autumn and spring, and 
taxed every resource of the Macedonian's ingenuity 
and all the discipline and dash of his men-at-arms. 
It was not till the summer of 327 that the Emperor 
was ready to repass the Hindu Kush ; and so 
obstinate had been the resistance, and so apt did 
the hill country appear for fresh revolt, that he was 



TURKESTAN 231 

prompted to seek the first of his two political mar- 
riages. Roxana, daughter of one of the greatest 
of the hill chiefs, was selected by the conqueror, and 
we are told much of his enslavement to her beauty; 1 
but it should be noted that we hear no more of the 
Queen for the rest of Alexander's campaigns, and 
that she conceived no child by him until a few 
months before his death. 

Through the cloud of expeditions and sieges and 
official acts one lurid gleam falls in the Bactrian 
year full upon the man. The Emperor was lying in 
Samarcand at the late winter season, in the interval 
between his second campaign in the north-west and 
that to come in the east, having just succeeded in 
retrieving finally the grievous mishap his lieutenants 
had met with in the past summer. It seems that in 
consequence of that event there had arisen some 
odious comparison of the Macedonian marshals with 
their ever-victorious Kintr, 2 and that Alexander bv 
reason of his triumph and of much feasting was more 
than ever disposed to override prejudices of race. Es- 
pecially it fell out, at a great banquet given to all sorts 
and conditions on the Festival of the Dioscuri, that the 
court rhymers made invidious capital of the disaster, 
and the talk at table chancing on the Immortal 
Twins, whose day it was, certain Greek soldiers of 
fortune pointed in tipsy flattery to the coincidence 

1 E.(j. by Curtius, viii. 4. 25. His further statement — that the 
Macedonians regarded the alliance with much disfavour — is more 
credible. 

2 Plut. Alex. 50. 



232 ALEXANDER 

of the birth of the so-called sons of Tyndareus 
with that of Alexander; for both, said they, were 
fathered on a mortal, who were really children of 
Zeus, and how much greater was the conqueror 
of Asia than those sackers of Aphidnae ! A little 
leaked out also in direct disparagement of Philip. 
Alexander, far gone in wine, smiled on the talk ; 
but a knot of his elder Macedonians took it ill, 
reviving memories of the elder king; and at last 
Clitus, emboldened by the privilege of a foster-brother, 
took up cudgels for the old Maker of Macedon, crying 
shame on the decriers of the king whose men had 
opened Asia. Alexander, to his honour, took the 
implied rebuke quietly enough, but Clitus was fool 
enough, or drunk enough, to point it with a direct 
personal sting. The insulted Emperor threw an 
angry warning across to his foster-brother, but only to 
receive in the teeth an outrageous gibe at his Median 
dress and would-be imperial state. He sprang to his 
feet, but restraining himself a moment, bade his 
Greeks note what barbarians were these Macedonians 
after all ! Clitus, not to be browbeaten, thanked God 
devoutly he at least was none of the slaves ! It 
was too much. Alexander snatched a missile, and 
leaping the table felt for his dagger ; but it had been 
withdrawn privily from his side, and in the confusion, 
while he called in wild Macedonian speech for his 
body-guard, friends hustled Clitus protesting from 
the banquet. The ill-starred man, however, broke 
away, and rushing back to another door, drew 
aside the hangings and shouted an insulting line of 



DEATH OF CLITUS 233 

Euripides down the hall. Alexander turned to the 
voice, and seizing a weapon hurled it at the falling 
curtain, and behind it his foster-brother went down 
in the agony of death. 

From wild wrath to the repentance of a madman 
a nature like Alexander's passes in a flash. Rushing 
to the fallen man, the Emperor drew out the fatal 
lance, and tried to throw himself on its point. 1 But 
the great officers seized his wrists, and ordering the 
corpse to be withdrawn hastily, attended their lord 
to his chamber ; where for three days and nights the 
exalted and overwrought spirit passed through the 
darkest valley of self-abasement, till specious plati- 
tudes of kismet and predestination began to soothe, 
and a sophistic Greek infused a baleful balm, remind- 
ing the successor of Darius that emperors stand above 
obligation and above law. 

So Alexander came to his confident self again. 
But the sorry tragedy had left a mark, and seems to 
have prompted the Emperor to make a more strenuous 
attempt at Balkh in the following spring to break down 
invidious distinctions of nationality, and obliterate 
Macedonian privilege. Not only the Macedonians, 
however, but the Greeks as well, proved mighty stiff- 
necked about paying homage in the eastern manner 
by prostration ; and a lesson, rude but effective, was 
read to Alexander by the discovery of a second plot 
against his life, hatched indeed from the trivial grief 
of a Page, but fostered, it appears, by those of more 

1 I see no reason to doubt this attempt at suicide. It was the 
received tradition in antiquity (cf. Cicero, Tusc. Disp. iv. 37). 



234 ALEXANDER 

weight who had fallen out of favour in the recent 
matter of the homage. 

A strangely significant picture this, that the 
meagre chroniclers throw into relief — this inheritor 
of a European throne in his Persian robes, perfumed 
and tiaraed, with a motley company drawn from 
half Asia and half Europe, listening in Samarcand 
to Greek song and Greek talk ! How far and fast 
had the world moved since Marathon ! Greeks were 
fraternizing now with Persians, both at their ease ; 
only the Macedonians sat glowering and constrained, 
masterful, stiff-necked Northerners that they were. 
They might well feel uneasy ! Their native speech 
had become so rare at the court of their King that 
a word of command, shouted in it, rang on unwonted 
ears like a tocsin.^And what a strange position 
among all these is Alexander's! — he drinking rose- 
crowned among his captains, knowing that he is 
using them, each and all, as means to an end which 
they comprehend not, and, comprehending, would 
not accept. With one section of his following, the 
Macedonian — that, by custom, most attached to his 
person — he is out of all sympathy. With a second, 
the Greek, he is for the moment in accord, but the 
greater one day will be its undeceiving. With the 
third, the Oriental, this Homeric paladin is on terms 
at all only by stifling the prejudices of his education 
and all recollection of his first ideals. Insensibly 
and inevitably his fortune has lifted him out of the 
plane of all contemporary men, and it will raise him 
ever higher and higher on his pinnacle of isolation, 



ISOLATION 235 

until his nerves begin to crack and his head to 
swim. / 

For also all ties of private sympathy were falling 
fast away from him. His mother, alone of all his 
nearer kin, had been anything to him in his youth, 
and the wild harridan had come near estranging 
herself altogether in this seven years' absence by the 
dangerous discord that she fostered in Europe. " A 
heavy rent is this I pay for my nine months," groaned 
her son, on hearing from Antipater of some fresh 
outrage ; but he clung, nevertheless, to her memory 
— he had little else to cling to ; and even though 
he forbade her .to touch public affairs, he allowed 
her tears to weigh against all his Viceroy's griefs. 
Had not his foster-brother, too, fallen by his hand ? 
and did not he bear hardly less heavy on his 
soul the deaths of many others near and dear, who 
had fallen in his wars ? Of his earliest intimates and 
comrades in exile, Ptolemy, Erigyius, and Nearchus 
were with him still ; but Harpalus, who had played 
him false already, and would betray his trust once 
more, was left behind in Babylon. The other strong 
attachment of his boyhood, that to his great tutor, 
had been strained by long absence and gradual 
divergence of ideas. Aristotle had now resided for 
long in Athens ; and from that centre of Hellenic 
exclusiveness he came to speak and write less and 
less kindly of his royal pupil who would obliterate 
the heaven-ordained privilege of Hellenes. Those 
of Aristotle's school who had accompanied Alexander 
had been most consistent opponents of his imperial 



236 ALEXANDER 

ideal, and latterly Callisthenes, their best and 
bravest spirit, accused of complicity in the Page's plot, 
had paid with his life for representing too well his 
master in philosophy. Philotas and Parmenio, Clitus 
and Callisthenes, head a grievous death-roll, which 
after the Indian campaigns fills apace. Many of the 
names written thereon in the last years of Alexander 
are doubtless those of men, cruel and rapacious, who 
indeed had misused their office ; but also many, doubt- 
less, fell victims to their inability to grasp an ideal 
grown too wide, or were placed in a mere semblance 
of fault by the suspicion with which fear had begun 
to cloud the mind of their sovereign. 

The spring of 327 was far spent ere Alexander 
moved south from Balkh, and, marching back over 
Hindu Kush, came down to his city founded eighteen 
months before. The last labour of his Herculean 
doom lay before him as he entered the Indian 
satrapy. In the Persian imperial scheme India lay 
rather west than east of the Indus, and signified the 
basin of the Cabul River, and as much of the Indus 
Valley as the Great King could hold tributary. But 
the limits of his assumed Persian inheritance were 
becoming too strait for Alexander. Had he not given 
warning of a scheme of Empire more universal when 
he asked, at sight of the Caspian, if that was not a 
part of the girdling Ocean Stream, and when he 
questioned the Scythians of Tashkend about Europe ? 
Soon the oecumenic ideal will develop apace. Ocean 
seems the only true limit of empire. Where, then, 



THE CONQUEST OF THE EARTH 237 

is its Stream on the east ? As the army pushes 
forward, it recedes. The Indus proves after all not 
to be the Nile, 1 and a still greater river is reported 
to flow beyond its tributaries. Let that, however, 
be crossed, and Ocean could not but be near ; and 
therefore sore indeed was the constraint put on the 
Captain by the refusal of his army to leave the 
Punjab. Foiled on one side, the sanguine man 
turned south to seek the Stream again, and having 
arrived at a tidal sea put his whole soul into such 
an expedition- as would prove that there, at least, 
his work was done. No Greek conceived of any- 
thing but fairy-land beyond a tidal ocean. As the 
Pillars of Hercules were notoriously the limit on the 
West, so this beach of the Indus Delta, on which 
Alexander's ships were left suddenly aground, could 
seem nothing else than an uttermost edge of earth. 
From this moment, therefore, was born Alexander's 
last and most vast project of rounding off the 
world south, west, and north, with a fleet and army 
proceeding through Africa to Europe, which two 
continents he seems, following his favourite Homer, 
to have pictured as shallow half-moons, their chords 
resting on the interposed Mediterranean Sea. 

The hillmen on the northern streams of the Cabul 
basin gave Alexander, as they have given every 
invader since his time, some very tough fighting; and 

1 For this strange, passing delusion of Alexander's, we have 
the authority of Arrian (vi. 1) and Straho (p. 707). Both seem to 
derive from one source — Alexander's letters to Olympias. 



238 ALEXANDER 

the late autumn and early winter were spent by a 
Macedonian column in the upper valleys of Khond, 
Kafiristan, and Chitral, chasing agile foes from rock 
to rock, and taking innumerable walled villages, the 
larger of which, such as a certain Massaga on the 
Swat, cost short but formal sieges. The year 326 was 
well begun ere the Emperor could come down to the 
Indus, having captured the last and strongest hold, 
situated on the great river itself ; and he found ready 
the material for a floating bridge, prepared by his 
main body, which had come direct from Cabul by the 
Khyber Pass. 

That wild land of the north-west, however, was not 
really subjugated. Alexander himself had to go back 
to Dir and deal another blow ere he left the Indus. 
His lieutenants in the following year were still raiding 
and fighting, and a year later still his Viceroy was 
murdered as prelude to a general revolt, in which, after 
the great Captain's death, most part of Afghanistan 
and Khelat slipped again out of Macedonian hands. 1 
But at this moment Alexander had not patience 
to tarry among hill forts, and with the first of the 
spring had ferried his Grand Army across the Indus, 
and was marching into the north of the Punjab. 

A local rajah of the Indus Valley had made terms 
with the western invader, but the main levy of the 
warrior peasantry of the upper country was waiting 
in arms behind the Jhelum. In all Asia Alexander 
had not been brought to face a problem more grave 
than now. For he had come, hardly knowing it, to 
1 Strabo, p. 698. 



TPIE HYDASPES 239 

the threshold of a new world, and into conflict with 
an unknown civilization, as stable and cohesive as 
his own. It was no group of robber chieftains that 
waited beyond the river, but the able prince of a great 
and warlike empire ; 1 no accumulation of gregarious 
nomads, but a disciplined force possessing all his 
arms, and one that he had not — a corps of war- 
elephants. At Arbela there had been a weak spot 
at the heart of the foe, and most loose attachment 
of his members. At the Hydaspes the enemy's force 
was uniform, disciplined, confident, and marshalled 
on its own ground. The torrential rains and heavy 
heat of a clime utterly unlike anything in their ex- 
perience were beginning to tell on Alexander's men : 
and if an issue was to be come to at all, passage must 
first be forced across a river wider than the Tigris 
— the first great river, indeed, which had been held 
in force against the Macedonians. 

All the world knows how Alexander triumphed. 
The battle of the Hydaspes, won after long de- 
moralizing delay, takes established rank among the 
most brilliant operations of ancient warcraft. The 
strategy which distracted the attention of the foe 
till a river half a mile wide had been all but 
crossed on a black night of storm, is only equalled 
by the supreme audacity of the venture. The confi- 
dence of the Grand Army is never more amazing 

1 See Talhoys Wheeler (op. cit.) on the ancient Kshatriya 
Empire of the Punjab. He quotes from Ferishta how the great 
King " P'hoor " marched to the frontier of India to oppose 
Alexander. 



240 ALEXANDER 

than here at Hydaspes, and, as always in strenuous 
action, the Captain himself is seen at his best. His 
imperious soul was fulfilled now only in most intense 
excitement, for it had come to be with him as with 
the Spartan, that he " went to ruin in the day of 
peace." In the dust and stress of battle the heroic 
side of Alexander's character at once appears. In 
instant sympathy with his own men, and generous 
to those of his foe, tireless, fearless, swift to decide 
and swift to act, he is hardly ever at fault, and never 
weak. So he remains the one general of history 
who won all his battles. 

From the Jhelum to the Chenab, the Chenab to the 
Ravi, and the Ravi to the Sutlej, the Grand Army, 
swelled now with Afghans and Punjabis, marched 
without serious opposition, save at one stockade of the 
Cathaeans near Amritsar ; and princes even of Cash- 
mere sent to propitiate the new Conqueror. Ganges 
itself was said to flow but twelve marches distant 
through rich cities and fat lands. Alexander gave the 
word to bridge and pass the last of the Five Rivers. 

But the western soldiers faced about. The awful 
climate 1 had forced on a crisis. Eight years ago 
many had looked last on wife and child and home. 
There was not a regiment but had been decimated 
since it marched out at the first, and no survivor 
who kept a whole skin. Turn they would, and reap 
some reward in life for so long labour. 2 

1 See Strabo, p. 691. 

2 These are, of course, the members of the original Grand 
Army led by Alexander across the Dardanelles, though all the 



MUTINY AT THE SUTLEJ 241 

/ 

Here is, perhaps, the most singular mutiny in 
history. There seems to have been neither heat nor 
anger, but simply the dogged determination of weary 
men. The unanimity was absolute, and the mortified 
Emperor might beg, demand, decree — no mutineer 
yielded a step to pity or to fear. The spirit of the 
whole Army is represented admirably by the speech 
that Arrian puts into the mouth of Coenus. There 
is the true note of weariness, the old spearmen's sense 
of the injustice of hope so long deferred, their sore 
sickness for home, and, through all, an uneasy fear 
lest they offend beyond pardon the idol of all their 
hearts, and the one man who could lead them back. 

For three days Alexander waited, gloomy as 
Achilles in his tent ; but the camp lay in silence 
unbroken. The Captain knew the sign, and bowed 

rest joined in this mutiny. A large part of the Army of India, 
however, must have been composed of men of shorter service, for 
during the past eight years a great many reinforcements had 
marched up and been drafted into the ranks; e.g. 3,650 of all 
arms joined at Gordium in 333 (Callisthenes, ap. Polyb. xii. 19. 2, 
raises this reinforcement to 5,800 men) ; 4,000 Greeks at Sidon 
in 332; 900 Greeks and Thracians in Egypt early in 331; 15,000 
men at Susa late in the same year; 1,500 of Darius' Greek 
mercenaries in Hyrcania in 330 ; 6,000 Indians at Nysa, at the 
Indus, and at Taxda in 327-326. Diodorus adds 30,000 Greek 
mercenaries incorporated at the Hydaspes. To counterbalance 
these, which are probably only a part of the fresh drafts, we must 
subtract an indefinite number who took their discharge at Ecba- 
tana, the large garrisons and colonizing drafts left here and there, 
and the losses by battle or sickness. But on the whole the Grand 
Army increased very largely as it went on. Arrian tells us, in the 
Indica (19), that it had reached a total of 120,000 men on its re- 
turn to the Hydaspes. Niese has a good passage (p. 158) on the 
changes effected during the Eastern march. 

16 



242 ALEXANDER 

his stubborn head. 1 He decreed a solemn taking 
of omens, as though bent still on passing the river, 
but the gods kindly took on themselves to give the 
veto. The word went forth for return, and the 
veterans gave vent to their pent-up emotion in 
weeping and shouting and crowding about Alex- 
ander's tent to tender humble gratitude and humbly 
to pray for pardon. 

Twelve altars rose above the Sutlej to the gods of 
the Greeks, and long were fed by the rajahs of this 
region ; 2 and there, at the end of the world, was held 
the last of those Olympic contests by which the 
Emperor, throughout his Indian march, sought to 
inspirit his men to resist the Rains. Exotic, indeed, 
these contests must have seemed — expressions of a 
sanguine civilization, that exalted the flesh, in a far 
contemplative land, where bliss is impersonal Nirvana 
through the flesh mortified. Exotic indeed, and 
therefore India, when Alexander left her, was still 
what she had been when he came. For not only was 
she too vast and too old to learn in the summer of 
one year, but the superiority of the newly imported 
civilization was not sufficiently obvious to weigh 
against all in it that was uncongenial. As a great 
French eulogist of Alexander 3 most justly says : " Ce 
qui manqua a Alexandre ce fut de porter a l'Asie 
une religion plus pure et plus lumineuse que les reves 

1 If we can trust Diodorus' authorities, Alexander had several 
motives for compliance ; indeed, it was hardly possihle to have 
kept the field much longer in any case. 

2 Plut. Alex. 62. 

8 Lamartine, at the end of his Vie d* Alexandre. 



THE SPIRIT OF INDIA 243 

de I'Olympe, qui ne valaient pas les reves des mages 
ou les mysteres pleins de divinite de l'lnde." The 
Hellene was baffled by the difficulty that still con- 
fronts even those who would introduce the creed 
of Christ to Brahmans. The advance that he pro- 
posed in theory and practice was too delicate to 
induce change in minds already habituated to a high 
and congenial philosophy, and by reason of race and 
clime little prone to move. In vain the drama of 
Athens * was exhibited by Alexander to Indian eyes, 
in vain her nude athletes wrestled and her four-horse 
chariots raced. These things but passed as a midday 
dream through the ecstatic brain of a fakir ; and 
those fifteen Brahmans on the Lower Indus who 
refused to be impressed by the Conqueror and took 
his messenger scornfully to task, as one who, com- 
pared to themselves, grovelled in the flesh, spoke 
finally for the whole cultured class of India — a class 
shallow, vainglorious, prone to evade by quibble the 
obligation to know, and able to be degraded, but 
neither wishing nor able to be raised by western 
methods to western ideals. 2 

Therefore, although some personal memories sur- 
vived as to Chandragupta, the adventurer-sultan of 

1 On the question of the performance of the Agen on the 
Hydaspes, see Droysen, i. p. 639, note, and Niese, op. tit. p. 156. 
The latter gives ample reasons for continuing to believe that 
India was the scene. 

2 The Greeks, for their part, seem to have been greatlv im- 
pressed with the Brahmans. The apocryphal and romantic litera- 
ture connecting Alexander with them and their King, Dandamis, 
is very large. 



244 ALEXANDER 

Patali-putra, who, as a boy, had seen the Conqueror, 1 
Alexander's name is said not to appear in Sanskrit 
literature ; 2 and he faded slowly from Indian tradition, 
until the wave of Islam brought him back on its crest, 
transfigured as Dlmlkarnein, the " two-horned," the 
Prophet. 

The Return was not to follow the line of the 
Advance further westward than the Jhelum. Two 
months before, ere Alexander had left the two cities 
that he had founded at the scene of his triumph over 
Porus, he had issued orders that such of his soldiers 
and camp-followers as were natives of the Levantine 
coasts should prepare a river flotilla. For he had 
learned from native report that the Four Rivers 
flowed into the Indus, and that the united stream 
could not be the Nile, for it ran presently into a sea. 
Was that sea not part of Ocean Stream ? He would 
descend the water-way, opening out and securing his 
new Indian province as he went ; and thereafter there 
would remain no more to be done on the southern 
edge of the world. 

The flotilla was ready, and the leisurely voj^age 
begun, by November of 326. The most part of the 
army marched still by land, meeting the fleet at 
successive points ; and as soon as the Levantine boat- 
men settled down to an understanding of such new 
navigation, all went smoothly enough. Too smoothly, 
perhaps, for Alexander's unquiet spirit, for all the 
while he was raiding on this side and that, without 

1 Plut. Alex. 62. 2 Max Miiller, India, p. 274. 



THE FIGHT AT MOOLTAN 245 

much ostensible provocation, unless it were that the 
tribes refused to bring down supplies. Such warfare 
by the wayside, with its little of definite purpose, 
and its absence of permanent results, might well be 
ignored, were it not that in its course occurred the 
most famous, the most foolish, and not the least 
characteristic of the exploits of Alexander's autum- 
nal years. 

The affair befell in a certain city of the southern 
Punjab, probably hard by where now stands Mooltan. 
The streets were already in the hands of the Mace- 
donian column, but the mud walls of the citadel 
held out still. The attacking Guards had no siege- 
train, nor, it appears, more than two ladders ; and 
the scaling parties seem to have been hanging back 
until more and better means of ascent should be 
procured. Alexander, however, seldom could wait. 
Seizing a ladder from its bearers, he reared it with 
his own hands against the wall, and crouching under 
his shield, climbed, followed by two esquires, while 
by the second ladder a sturdy veteran also reached 
the battlement. The defenders of the wall fell back 
from close quarters with the glittering figure of the 
Emperor ; but bolts and stones rained about him from 
the nearest towers and the rising ground within. 
The Guards saw from below that their Captain was 
in imminent danger, and began to swarm pell-mell 
up the two ladders ; but these, being probably only 
such as could be requisitioned from houses of the 
town, collapsed under the rush, and left the attack 
for the moment paralyzed. Alexander could hardly 



246 ALEXANDER 

remain where he was, unsupported and a mark 
for all missiles. Another man would have dropped 
back again on his own side of the wall ; but the 
dare-devil madness was awake in Philip's son, and, 
with scarce a moment's hesitation, he took a flying 
leap, the light gleaming on his ringing arms, full 
into the fort, and by a miracle found his feet. His 
three followers, for a few instants, hung back from 
the leap, and meanwhile Alexander, who had set 
his back against the outer wall, kept the astonished 
Indians at bay with stones and play of sword. But 
when the three Macedonians had scrambled down 
to join their Captain, and no one else appeared, 
the enemy took heart. The veteran man-at-arms 
was first to fall, shot in the face ; the esquires 
covered Alexander as best they could ; but a stone 
fell with stunning force on his helm, and before 
he could recover his guard, an arrow struck right 
through corselet and breast-bone to the lung. The 
stricken man faced the foe a few moments longer, 
then reeled and fell ; and his shield-bearers stepped 
across the body for a last stand. But the Guards 
without the wall had been finding methods of despair, 
and by one way or another — by hoisting themselves 
on other men's shoulders, by driving pegs into the 
hard mud — here and there they gained the battle- 
ments, and with shouts of rage leaped down within 
the wall. The Indians drew back ; a gate was 
forced ; and the furious spearmen hewed their way 
through the fort until not a soul — man, woman, 
child — was left alive. 



THE RETURN TO THE FLEET 247 

Alexander had come to himself, and demanded to 
have the barbed head cut out of his chest. This 
was done — some say by a Coan leech, others by the 
rude surgery of Perdiccas' sword — and in the flux 
of blood that followed, the Emperor fell again insen- 
sible. A report that he was dead flew round the 
main camp on the Chenab. But Alexander was not 
to die yet, and after some days, hearing that the 
worst news was gaining general credit, and grave 
disorders threatened, he demanded to be conveyed by 
boat down to the flotilla. As his bark approached, 
the whole army crowded to the shore, believing it 
to bring their Emperor's corpse ; but ordering the 
curtain about his bed to be drawn aside, Alexander 
stretched out a hand towards the bank, and a wild 
shout went up from the host. Not content with this 
demonstration of life, he refused, on landing, to enter 
the litter prepared, but had himself lifted on to a 
horse, and so rode painfully to his tent, the scarred 
veterans casting flowers in his path and fighting 
with one another for a touch of his hand or his 
knee, or of just the hem of his garment. 

Friends were found to tell Alexander the candid 
truth — that such Homeric championship was no part 
of the duty of a general, and least of one on whom 
the lives of an army depended so absolutely. But 
he liked best the old Boeotian pikeman, who said, in 
his rustic dialect, that his Captain had played the 
man, for in this world it is ever a law, " Take no 
pain, get no gain ! " 

Many were the days of slow convalescence ere 



248 ALEXANDER 

again the Emperor could embark, and by easy stages 
reach the main stream of Indus, where lie decreed the 
founding of two cities near the point of confluence ; 
for so he hoped to cover the great western road up 
the Bolan Pass, by which the larger part of the 
army would be bidden presently to march to Persis. 
Thence the flotilla dropped down to its goal, the apex 
of the Delta, as it was then, some miles south-east 
of Haiderabad, 1 and there it was docked at the 
deserted town of Pattala. 

There was brief repose for the army, but not for 
its Captain. The fever of unrest had burned into 
his inmost soul, and, grown familiar now with ever- 
lengthening vistas of empire, he would accept nothing 
less than all the earth. His oecumenic scheme was 
developed fully, and henceforth would condition all 
his acts. First and last, Ocean was in his thoughts. 
Already the voyage of Nearchus was planned, the 
ships were collected, and the first wells dug to the 
eastward ; and the Emperor had paid in person his 
solemn homage to the great World-Stream, having 
sailed down both outflows of Indus and a mile or 
two out on to the broad bosom of the deep. The 
main part of the Grand Army was departed already 
for the Bolan Pass, and, simply for the fleet's sake, 
a small picked force that remained was destined to 
follow its unsparing Captain into the hideous land 
of Gedrosia — he knew well how hideous ! 2 

1 General Haig (Indus Delta, p. 18) places Pattala thirty -five 
miles south-east of Haiderabad. 

2 See Arr. vi. 24 ; Strabo, p. 722. 



ALEXANDER AND THE OCEAN 249 

The famous ocean voyage, which the bosom friend 
of Alexander's early years now volunteered to lead, 
is the most curious incident in all the Conquest. 
The Emperor showed a preliminary solicitude for its 
equipment, a poignant anxiety for its fate, and an 
exuberant joy at its safe arrival in the Persian Gulf, 
which are not to be explained simply by the dauger 
to which he believed himself to be exposing friends 
and followers. These dangers no doubt he magnified 
as much as did Nearchus himself. Demon-haunted 
Ocean, with its tremendous cataclysms, possessed 
once a horror for the sailors of inland seas which 
now can hardly be realized, even in the light of such 
recitals as Arrian's account of this voyage ; and, as 
has been said already, Alexander had too little con- 
fidence in the ability of others to carry through criti- 
cal enterprises without his own personal presence. 

Nevertheless, so unique a display of nervousness 
and emotion by a nature case-hardened as that of 
Alexander had come to be must have drawn from 
deeper sources than those of the moment or occasion. 
The interests which Alexander believed to be involved 
in the success of Nearchus' voyage were for him 
paramount. Not only would the arrival of the fleet 
in the Persian Gulf prove that the limit of earth 
had been reached indeod, but also that there was 
an open Ocean-way by which the different extremi- 
ties of a world-empire could be joined. It may be 
said with truth that Alexander was actuated by 
both commercial and geographical motives. He had 
commerce distinctly in view when he explored both 



250 ALEXANDER 

mouths of the Indus, and established docks in the 
lagoons on the eastern arm ; and he proposed 
directly to enlarge the bounds of knowledge when 
he enjoined Nearchus to take careful note of all he 
might pass by land or sea. 1 But always there was 
an ulterior aim, the better securing of the permanence 
of his own empire. And with this in view he seems 
to have been possessed, in his latter years, by the 
idea of opening water communications. Few have 
had better reason than Alexander to know how slow, 
how costly, and how wasteful is transit by land ; and 
after eight years spent in marching across a continent, 
it is small wonder that he looked about for a better 
way. Much of his later time was spent on the water. 
He was more than seven months on the Indian 
streams ; he took ship again on the Karun River, 
and made his way from its mouth up the Shatt-el- 
Arab and the Tigris ; and last of all we find him 
exploring the water-ways about Babylon. 

Therefore Alexander endured more and spent more 
to ensure the success of this voyage of Nearchus than 
in all eight years of conquest. Starting nearly a 
month ahead of the fleet, he made direct for the 
Purali River, and thereafter, with a small detachment, 
followed the waterless coast-line, digging wells against 
the arrival of the sailors. 2 And not only temporary 
but permanent provision was made in the sorry 
Beluchi land ; for after the usual raids in terror em, a 
colony was planted on the last outskirts of cultivation, 

1 Arr. vii. 20. 

8 See Haig, op. cit. App. E., on this iiarch. 



BELUCHISTAN" 251 

surely in the least desirable locality ever favoured by 
a Greek founder ! x The reason for the existence of 
such a city, and indeed for any expedition into this 
region, is to be sought in no other consideration than 
the interests of the sea route round its coasts. Most 
sparsely inhabited by un warlike peoples, so poor as to 
yield the scantiest food for those few, cut off by the 
Gedrosian Desert from affording any reasonable route 
to the West, Beluchistan might have been left un- 
visited more fitly than many outlying districts which 
Alexander had passed by — the north of Asia Minor, 
for instance, the hills of Kurdistan and Armenia, 
or the oases of Merv and of Khiva. In all the 
Mekran Alexander met no foes, hardly even a human 
being, founded no cities, and annexed no territory. 
He did no more than devote himself and the lives of 
his men to making provision for Nearchus. Parties 
were sent down from time to time into the ghastly 
littoral " to see what harbours there were existing, to 
dig wells, to establish markets or stake out anchor- 
ages, to prepare all, in short, for the passage of the 
fleet." The explorers go down and find no living 
souls but half-human fish-eaters, and returning, are 
bidden by the Emperor to take all the corn that he 
has been able to scrape from the upper country, and 

1 There seeing to have been two colonies planted in Beluchistan, 
not only this, alluded to in the text, founded by Leonnatus (Pliny, 
N. H. vi. 23; Arr. vi. 28, 5), but also one founded by Hephaes- 
tion just west of the Purali (Arr., vi. 21. 5 ; and Steph. Byz. 
s.v. Oritce). Pliny indeed (I.e.) indicates a third — " Arbis oppi- 
dura " — founded by Nearchus, but probably it was not more than 
a temporary factory. 



252 ALEXANDER 

cache it here and there on the coast. The convoy 
itself, however, is presently so famished that it dares 
to break the imperial seals and eat a little of the 
corn ; and Alexander has no choice but to pass the 
heinous offence in silence. 

The story of the Macedonian march through the 
Gedrosian Desert is like nothing so much as a fever- 
ish dream. 1 The miserable column ploughed its 
way, worn, famished, and parched, over an ocean of 
powdery hillocks into which feet sank "as in mud 
or untrod snow-drifts." 2 The animals laboured even 
more grievously than the men, and uncertainty where 
water would at last be found was the worst of all their 
miseries. The marches dragged far into the night 
after all a day, and far into the day after all a night. 3 
Soon the men begin to kill and cut up privily the 
horses and mules, telling their officers that the beasts 
have dropped of themselves ; and though the deceit 

patent, Alexander must go grimly on. There 
are not beasts left to carry the weak, and the 
waggon-loads of sick have long been abandoned 
in the sand. Men drop out, and die horribly, 
writhing as in the throes of cramp. If one falls 
asleep in a long night march, his comrade lets him 
lie, for each man thinks only of himself ; and when 
at last water is found, the pool is quickly fouled 

1 Cf. Arrian (vi. 23 ff.) with Strabo (p. 722). Neither author 
is given to rhetoric. 

2 Arr. vi. 24. 

8 Strabo reports that as much as seventy-five miles had to be 
covered on one occasion between water and water ! 



ARRIVAL IN CARMANIA 253 

with swollen corpses. 1 Alexander seems to have 
done all in human power to lighten the awful trial, 
himself scouting for water and riding farthest and 
longest, or leading the march on foot ; and if the 
famous story that he rejected a draught, brought to 
him in a helmet, be true (and if indeed it happened 
here, and not in the pursuit of Darius), it shows that 
there was not only heroism in the captain, but courage 
still in the men. On the sixtieth day after leaving 
his latest colony 2 Alexander dragged a sorry remnant 
into the land of the living, two-thirds, it is said, of 
his original force being left behind in the hell into 
which he had led them ; and the final halt was called 
late in December of 325, at a pleasant spot inland 
some five days' journey from the mouth of the Shur 
River. 

Ill news met the Emperor. Craterus arrived 
indeed in safety with the main army, having marched 
by the Bolan road to the Helmund Valley, and 
come thence across the plains of Kirman, and great 
was the joy of reunion ; but with him came also 
evidence of much rottenness in the central provinces 
of the empire. Several governors had made uneasy 
haste to meet Alexander; and not only they, but 
a crowd of suppliants, anxious to report deeds of 
viceroys and generals done in the years of his 

1 To this march must be referred the story in Polyaenus (iv. 3. 
28), that Alexander once prevented his army breaking its ranks 
by declaring a river to be poisonous. 

2 Mr. Curzon says (Persia, ii. p. 234) that from Alexander in 
325 b.c. to the year 1809 a.d., no European is recorded to have 
penetrated into the interior of the Mekran. 



254 ALEXANDER 

absence. The chief crimes alleged seem to have had 
a political and religious colour, namely, violation and 
robbery of temples and tombs, especially in the holy 
places of Persis. 1 We are told no more than that in 
many cases Alexander held guilt to be proved, and 
had governors degraded or executed ; which severity 
pleased mightily the Persians, and instilled a whole- 
some terror into those in authority throughout the 
empire. We could wish, however, to have had more 
information as to the motives and nature of the 
proved acts ; for that this sacrilegious form of 
robbery should have prevailed exclusively, where so 
many other forms were possible, and mainly in 
Persis and Media, is strongly suggestive of an 
organized policy on the part of the Macedonians 
left in those provinces, to counteract by insult and 
spoliation Alexander's favour to Persians at the front. 
It is said that successive rumours of the Emperor's 
death in India and in Gedrosia had reached the 
central provinces ; and these may have unchained 
there those national hatreds which Alexander had 
almost effaced from the Grand Army. 

Grave as were these troubles, they seem to have 
weighed on Alexander less heavily than the absence 
of news from Nearchus; and no messenger ever 
brought him tidings more welcome than a local 
official from the Gulf, who appeared in the camp one 

1 The violation of the Tomb of Cyrus is the capital instance, 
and Strabo's emphatic statement about it (p. 730) really goes 
farther to confirm than to refute the accusation against the 
satrap ; it certainly supports the theory that the crime was 
political. 



NEARCHUS ARRIVES 255 

clay, saying he had seen the fleet. In hot haste 
messengers posted along various roads to summon 
Nearchus inland ; but when days passed and no 
confirmation of the news came in, despair took pos- 
session of Alexander. The first messenger, however, 
had spoken truly enough, and, as Arrian pictures it, 
giving momentary play to the Greek in himself, a 
few mariners, weather-beaten out of all recognition, 
the sea-salt stiff in their hair, and their faces bleached 
by long sea vigils, were brought at last to the camp, 
where none knew them at first sight, and so into 
Alexander's presence. The Emperor came forward to 
meet them, and, falling on the neck of the admiral, 
fell a-weeping for the crews of which he supposed 
them to survive alone. Whereupon Nearchus made 
haste to announce that all his ships were safe and 
sound in port, and Alexander wept the more for joy, 
and swore a great oath that he would rather hear 
that news than be hailed conqueror of Asia from sea 
to sea ! 

The story that Nearchus had to tell must have 
fallen upon Alexander's curious ear like the tales 
brought back by seamen of Magellan. And even as 
we hear it now, shorn of almost every grace, and 
become hardly more than a catalogue of the daily 
runs, even so, in the meagre narration of a Roman 
officer, it retains a certain odour of salt and mystery 
of the unknown sea. We are shown the nervous 
crews, hardly reassured by the thought that their 
Emperor, having put in command one of his dearest 
friends, cannot expect them indeed to perish, creeping 



256 ALEXANDER 

out of the Indus estuary and beating up the coast 
to north-west, having made an inauspicious start 
before their time for fear of the Indians, who had 
become insolent and aggressive since the departure of 
the Army. 1 Then for four and twenty days they are 
forced to await the lulling of a head monsoon, but at 
last they can beat out again and hug noon by noon 
along the shore, pushing timidly between islands and 
the coast for fear of the swell of open ocean. They 
seem to have been equipped with little or no appliance 
for storing water, and, like the land army, to have 
been expected to live entirely on what they could 
find on their way. Once they shipped as much as 
ten days' provision, but soon fell into dearth and 
distress again, having aboard no standby, it seems, of 
dried flesh, or biscuit, or grain. Therefore they had 
to land continually, and indeed they suffered sorely 
if the sea was kept for long together, for the boats 
were cranky, needing frequently to be overhauled, 
and most of the sailors no better than sheer lands- 
men, worn out as much by the swell of the great 
deep as by their ceaseless fears. Arrian interrupts 
his catalogue at rare intervals to give a picture of 
some shore adventure. At one point half-naked 
savages rushed to the water's edge brandishing heavy 
lances with fire-hardened points, and the ships, like 
the typical pirate schooner with its brass guns, threw 
bolts and stones from engines on their decks, and 
under such cover the lighter armed and more active 
swam to the shallows, and there forming, charged 
1 Strabo, p. 721. 



INCIDENTS OF THE VOYAGE 2-57 

up the beach. But at other points the natives bring 
down kindly enough their poor gifts of fish and 
meats and fruits of the earth, only to be tricked on 
one occasion by Nearchus with such sorry perfidy as 
our navigators used often enough in the South Seas. 
For, gaining entrance in all amity to a stockade, the 
admiral shut the gates and held the fence till search 
had been made from house to house for grain. Very 
little was found after all, for the wretched Ichthyo- 
phagi used powdered flesh of fish for their flour, and 
even the sheep ate sea things, and tasted like sea-bird 
meat; and we may hope that Nearchus and his 
buccaneers went back a little shamefaced to their 
ships. A comic scene of panic is caused by a school 
of blowing whales ; but Nearchus, taking heart and 
ordering his men to shout the war-cry and his 
trumpets to sound, puts his own ship at a spouting 
monster, who astonished — and no wonder ! — dives 
incontinent and, coming up again astern, spouts 
as before ; and all the sailors breathe again and 
hail Nearchus as their only saviour. Thus in much 
distress for grain and all kinds of food, the fleet 
reached at last the mouth of the Persian Gulf, and 
came near making across, on the advice of Onesicritus, 
to Ras Mussendom, which loomed high on their left 
hand. In which event they would have wandered 
down the coasts of Oman and Muscat, and probably 
have perished miserably without seeing the Army 
again. But fortunately Nearchus insisted that the 
letter of his commission enjoined him to explore all 
the coast-line, gulf and bay alike, and so they kept 

17 



258 ALEXANDER 

on, hugging: the risrht-hand shore, and about the 
eightieth day since first loosing from the Indus bank 
brought up in a harbour hard by Bunder Abbas. 
There they went ashore to build a stockade and to 
recruit, and certain of them, all unsuspecting, lighted 
on a man dressed as a Greek and speaking the Greek 
tongue ; and they fell on his neck, and asked how 
he came into that strange land. But behold, he 
was one of the Army, and the Emperor himself 
was distant but five days' journey in the upper 
country. Whereupon Nearchus and Archias took a 
few followers and made inland for the camp, as 
alread} r has been narrated. 

This voyage, thought so marvellous a feat, is no 
more than the short steam run from Karachi to 
Bunder Abbas ; 1 and, in fact, it added little enough 
to the knowledge which the Army itself had bought 
so dearly by the land march. But as Columbus for 
the Spanish and Portuguese navigators, so Nearchus 
for the Greek, swept away by this venture a barrier 
of superstitious imaginings more awful than all the 
storms of the deep. Like that mysterious island 
at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, on which no 
man could land and live, till Nearchus showed it 
to be not different from any other land, so the 
Ocean had been proved at last to be essentially a 
sea like any other familiar sea, vexed, indeed, with 
greater heavings, running with a mightier surf on 
its coasts, and subject to wider change of tide, but 

1 The eastern portion of it is treated with special local knowl- 
edge by Gen. Haig. {pp. cit., pp. 10 ff. and App. F.). 



BREAKING THE EGG 259 

devoid as the waters of Greece of demoniac whirlpools 
and magnetic rocks and man-eating sirens and worse 
terrors without name passing the wit of man to avoid. 
To Alexander in particular the voyage seemed to 
make certain much that had been most doubtful 
before. The problem how he should conquer the 
other half of the earth now appeared shorn of half its 
difficulty. For surely he might sail on westwards 
where Nearchus had shown the way. Henceforth 
there need be but few of those heartbreaking marches 
of the earlier conquest, which year by year led farther 
from the base and ended in despair and mutiny ; for 
the sea would afford a main road, always open. 1 
Accordingly Alexander's last months were all devoted 
to preparing for a great expedition by way of Ocean. 
Ships were to be brought in sections from the 
Phoenician ports to the Euphrates, put together on 
the river, and navigated down to Babylon. Scout- 
ing vessels were sent out to determine the projection 
of Arabia; and the waterways from the Gulf to the 
huge dock projected at the capital, were explored 
and rendered navigable. 

It has been a commonplace of historians to depict 
Alexander as emerging a madman from Gedrosia ; 

1 He had not emancipated himself, however, from the necessity 
of having an accompanying land force (cf. Arr. vii. 25"). But 
the ships were evidently to be the main vehicle of the advance, 
and would be invaluable for the transport of a proper siege train, 
the conveyance of which by land had been all along one of 
Alexander's most insuperable difficulties. Cf. Diod. xvii. 22, for 
the retention of a few ships in 334, probably to serve a like 
purpose. 



260 ALEXANDER 

and, indeed, he might well have been no less, seeing 
that the horrors of that march, in which he had 
spared himself no more than of old, followed within a 
few months on the terrible wound at Mooltan ; seeing, 
further, that that hurt was preceded by three others 
in the Afghan hills : that in Turkestan the fibula of 
his leg had been broken, and he had all but died of 
dysentery ; while all these strains have to be added 
to a list already long enough when the advance to 
the Far East was begun ! * 

None the less, if he is to be judged by his acts, 
Alexander was never in fuller possession of bodily 
and mental vigour than in his last two years. He 
displayed, indeed, exuberances and passions exag- 
gerated to the point of disease, but never was more 
clear and tenacious of purpose, or more astute and 
bold in adopting and adapting means. The half 
world he had won already had to be ordered and 
made secure, and, that done, in pursuance of a scheme 
long formed he meant to march to win the other half. 
"But bitter experience had shown, that a second time 
neither might he leave national divisions unreconciled 
behind him, nor could he dare to start with a simple 
national army. The task, therefore, to which he set 
himself, in the years 324 and 323, was the fusion of 
nationalities alike in the official and military classes. 
He found it necessary both to destroy and construct. 
First he must purge the officials of their stiff-necked 
nationalists — that he effected by judicial process in 
Carmania and Persis ; and he must clear the army of 
1 Supra, p. 222. 



THE OECUMENIC SCHEME 261 

the stiff-necked veterans — this he did at Opis. Second, 
it behoved to import into both services, as far as 
possible, an element ready fused. This object was 
attained, for better or for worse, by the Susian orgy 
of intermarriage, and by drafting Orientals into all 
ranks of the army. Incidentally to the main issue 
Alexander contrived to remodel his own court, to 
reform the tactical structure of his army, to dis- 
tribute his offensive strength between land and sea, 
to institute relations with western courts, and to 
neutralize the ever-pressing danger of Greek jealousy. 
A full two-years' record, it must be allowed, even 
for a sane man ! 

It will be objected, however, that neither tenacity 
in the pursuit of an aim, nor extreme astuteness in 
the choice of means, are inconsistent with mania. 
The true test is the nature of the aim. Waiving 
the tenable position that the scale of Alexander's 
provision and preparation is too vast to be consistent 
with anything like madness as usually understood, 
let us be content to consider simply this final aim, 
which has been called mad, the aim, in short, of 
world-empire. Must we deem it mad, because no sane 
person at the time could have conceived its accom- 
plishment ? As the map of the world was pictured 
in the fourth century before our era, Alexander would 
imagine that he had not more left to win than already 
was his. Both on the Sir Daria and the Sutlej he 
saw reason to believe that the limit of earth was so 
near as, in the one case, to render further advance 
unnecessary, in the other, to necessitate perhaps a 



262 ALEXANDER 

single additional campaign. Recall that he was now 
not much more than thirty-one years of age ; that 
with the exception of a few outlying provinces, his 
conquests had not proved difficult to hold together, 
while he believed himself to have established a new 
and quicker route for his main advance, and an ever- 
open road of communication. As the scheme of the 
second conquest would have been projected on such 
a chart as could have been set out at Babylon in 323, 
how would it have appeared manifestly impossible ? 
Others beside Alexander, and later than he, saw no 
impossibility in the accomplishment of his last pro- 
gramme, or Livy would not have had to maintain 
that Rome could have held her own against even 
the Macedonian. 1 

But if the sane contemporary would have believed 
the scheme not impossible, could he sanely have 
held its accomplishment justified by the laws of 
God or man ? Here we enter on the question of 
historical right and wrong, a slippery matter, wherein 
the ethics of a later age are most apt to be sub- 
stituted for the ethics of contemporaries. The right 
of the stronger to take and hold was as much 
morality as a Macedonian king could be expected 
to practise ; and for the very highest international 
ethics of the time we need look no further than that 
famous statement made by Alexander's own tutor 
concerning Hellenes and barbarians in the opening 
of his treatise on Politic. Aristotle at least, who 
there laid it down that the higher civilization has 

1 ix. 17. 



MORALITY OF THE SCHEME 263 

right absolute to enslave the lower, would not have 
condemned on moral grounds Alexander's scheme. 

On the ground, however, that that scheme was not 
conceived in the interests of Hellenism unalloyed, the 
great thinker might have condemned it, probably as 
he did condemn much that Alexander had done. But 
to such a judgment posterity must make reply that, 
in the expansion of Hellas, contaminated Hellenism 
was soon proved to go farther and effect more than 
Hellenism pure. Aristotle, living in an epoch of 
transition a life secluded from affairs, was more prone 
to look back and less able to see forward in such 
an inquiry, than those who had been engaged, with 
however little understanding, in planting the Hellene 
in new soils. And, indeed, if Alexander were con- 
scious that a question of morality was involved in 
conquest at all, he might well have held all the 
right to be on his own side, and yet, as the ethics 
of his age stood, and as have stood the ethics of 
many ages subsequent to his, have been absolutely 
sane. 

If we look to the means which Alexander adopted 
in his last months to advance his great aim, we 
perceive that in conception he anticipated the cardinal 
cause of the provincial success of the Roman Empire. 
For he saw that universal conquests could not be 
accomplished, still less retained, with the strength 
of a single mother-people, but that the one half 
the world must be enlisted to conquer and hold the 
other half. Had he lived to subdue North Africa, 
we may be sure that Moors and Numidians would 



264 ALEXANDER 

have been found fighting under his banners in Spain 
and Gaul, and Spaniards and Gauls in Italy. His 
mixed army of Europeans and Asiatics, organized in 
Babylon in the spring of 323, was no more than the 
predecessor of those Gaulish and German legions 
which brought Emperors to Rome. 

When the historian finds Alexander punishing with 
drastic severity Viceroys of his own race whom he 
believed, wrongly or rightly, to have outraged alien 
faiths and extorted provincial money, his thought will 
pass on to Tiberius and the quinquennium JSferonis. 
When he sees Persians and Bactrians set high in a 
Macedonian empire, he thinks of Trajan the Spaniard, 
Elagabalus the Syrian, Maximin the Goth, and Philip 
the Arabian. The so-called Epigoni — those Oriental 
youths trained in the Macedonian manner, who were 
brousrht to Susa to be enrolled — recall the heirs of 
client kings, educated perforce in the Eternal City, 
and those children of the camps, who were the back- 
bone of the legionary system. Only when we come 
to assist at the famous marriage festival whereat 
Alexander and all his captains formally took to them- 
selves wives of the Orientals, and prizes and remission 
of debts were promised to such of the rank and file 
as would follow that example and beget citizens of 
the united empire, do we lose sight of Rome. Nothing 
so artificial ever entered into the policy of the most 
cosmopolitan of the Italian emperors. 1 

1 Alexander's project of forcing races to exchange habitats 
(mentioned already in note to p. 209) should be recalled here, 
although it was never carried out. Grote regards it as a new and 



ALEXANDER AND ROME 265 

The Roman universal empire, however, was a 
system independent of the life of an individual ; the 
Macedonian empire, as yet, but an expression of the 
genius of one man. The distinction is too obvious 
to need precision. What the cosmopolitan emperors 
of Rome inherited crystallized through unconscious 
centuries, Alexander had received fluid from his 
father. Did we know more details of the forty 
years of Augustus, we might find actions not less 
artificial than the Susian nuptials, although whereas 
the first Roman Emperor had ready to his hand the 
work of the last Dictator and all two centuries 
of senatorial system, the Macedonian had to start, 
like a Scipio, with just a military system and a 
hardly welded nation. Alexander, it may be, showed 
himself in this matter the young man in a hurry. 
But, be it not forgotten, he had to conquer young or 
conquer not at all, for only in full physical vigour 
could he hope to endure such labours as he was 
projecting for himself ; and further, that haste largely 
spells success in the subduing of low civilizations. 
Rapid action is apt to be clubbed hurry or decision, 
as it fails or succeeds. Alexander had not the de- 
liberate Western to deal with, but quick, adaptable 
Hellenes, who, as all know who are familiar with 
them now in Asia and Africa, rapidly form with 
Oriental civilizations an amalgam marvellously last- 
monstrous conception, abhorrent to the humane world. But surely 
such tribe-transportation had long been a Persian usage ? Philip 
himself had practised it in Paeonia (Justin, viii. 5 ; see Philip, 
p. 103), and it is part of our own habitual policy on the north- 
west frontier of our Indian Empire. 



266 ALEXANDER 

ing. We are considering for the moment, not the 
advantage of this amalgam, but the mode of its 
formation and its chances of permanence ; and in 
this connection it is enough to remind critics that a 
"mixed" empire, with an Asiatic centre, successively 
Seleucid, Parthian, and Persian, survived Alexander's 
death by fully a thousand years. 

The mutiny of the Army, which the concentration 
of so much artificial action into a few months induced 
presently at Opis, can make no difference to a judg- 
ment of Alexander's policy by results, for, so far as 
we can see, that mutiny left no mark. The Emperor 
deviated not one whit from his purpose ; the Army 
continued loyal as before. The time-expired men 
went home ; those designated for further service re- 
mained with the colours, and a year later displayed 
more conspicuous devotion than ever to their dying 
Captain. The ebullition had but left the Empire 
stronger, as the casting out of humours by an un- 
sightly eruption leaves the body. 

Late in 324 Alexander passed from the southern 
Residences to his northern capital, making, in a sort, 
an imperial progress through the heart of the Empire, 
to appease recent griefs and promote future unity ; 
and at Ecbatana there fell upon him, as a stunning 
blow, the loss of Hephaestion. It followed close on 
the second treason and final flight of another of the 
few intimates of his boyhood, Harpalus, whilom 
Treasurer of the Empire, who, conscious of vast 
peculations and most unbridled life, vanished from 



DEATH OF HEPHAESTION 267 

Babylon as his master approached from the East, and 
fled to make a chapter of history in the last days 
of free Athens. And now Hephaestion, too, was gone, 
the congenial enthusiastic nature which had been so 
much more to Alexander than Ptolemy's sagacity or 
Nearchus' careful courage, the friend, more than a 
friend, and closer than a brother, who alone awoke 
a gentler emotion in the breast of the lonely Con- 
queror. For there come, alike in discouragement and 
exaltation, to all men, however strong of body or 
brain, moments of craving, in which the soul gropes 
blindly for another soul ; and the most strong, if he 
owns this need most rarely, feels it most imperious. 
The blood of Olympias ran hotly in the veins of her 
son beneath that crust with which ambition and its 
fulfilment had overlaid him. In all things passionate, 
he passionately craved sympathy, and all the master- 
ful yearnings of his soul had been satisfied first and 
only by Hephaestion. The rest of the world had 
dwindled beneath his feet ; and lo ! now in a 
moment he was left in such a solitude as has 
seldom been the doom even of kings. All the 
savage in Alexander was unchained : he passed 
from paroxysm to paroxysm of emotion, at one 
moment abased in utter despair, at another seeking 
to fulfil his soul in strenuous cruelty. The last 
resources of extravagance were exhausted in sending 
the dear ghost worthily to the world below, and such 
a monument arose as only kings can raise to the 
one human being with whom they have been able 
to lay aside the king. 



268 ALEXANDER 

Little by little time assuaged the pain, and his 
great scheme of coming conquest resumed its mastery 
over Alexander's mind. He set out for Babylon 
very early in the new year, and not inopportunely 
encountered on his road a group of envoys, des- 
patched by many peoples of Africa and Europe who 
had caught the fast-spread news that the Conqueror 
of the East was coming to the West. The Ethiopian 
kingdom of Meroe, the great Republic of Carthage, 
many races of Spain and southern Gaul, and certain 
peoples of central and southern Italy, sent to spy 
the way of the wind. Envoys from the rising 
Republic of Rome, however, did not accompany the 
other Italians ; 1 and this fact suggests that among 
the objects of the latter was the securing, if possible, 
a future friend against the menacing growth of the 
former. 

The sight of the men of the West would seem to 
have revived all Alexander's interest in his oecumenic 
dream ; for we hear that he sent an officer back to 
explore the Caspian, and find its opening into the 
girdle Stream. 2 And his spirit so far recovered that 

1 Can any one maintain the contrary now, in face of the express 
statement of so well read a Greek as Arrian, a Roman official 
of Hadrian's time, that all the Latin and all the decent Greek 
authorities omitted mention of any Roman embassy (see Arr. 
vii. 15)? The earlier letter of Alexander to the Romans in re the 
Illyrian pirates (Strabo, p. 232), has also been often called in 
question, e. g. by Grote, Westermann, etc. ; but Thirlwall, Niebuhr, 
and Schiifer accepted it. 

2 According to Strabo's authorities (p. 509), Alexander seems 
to have supposed the Caspian to communicate with the Sea of 
Azov, and both with the Ocean. 



ARRIVAL AT BABYLON" 269 

he made sport of certain solemn words of the priests 
of Bel who came out to deter him from entering 
their city of Babylon " There are prophets good 
and prophets bad," laughed the Emperor, quoting 
Euripides ; " the best guesser is the best seer." For 
he knew that these priests had peculiar reasons for not 
desiring his presence in Babylon, where he might be 
expected to make inquiry into certain trust-funds of 
the god. Nevertheless, he was rendered somewhat 
uneasy by the persistence of the prophets of evil, 
and would have gladly given way to their super- 
stitions so far as to enter his capital with face to 
the rising, not the setting sun ; but finding that 
he could not take an army through the western 
marshes, in the end he came in by the east. 

Alexander's intention was to start for Arabia late 
in the coming summer, and Babylon was already a 
scene of tense activity. Embassies from the leading 
states of Greece were waiting to assure their over-lord 
that the civic governments had accepted his imperial 
decree, 1 promulgated at the late Olympic festival, that 
they should amnesty and receive back their several 
political exiles, and thus divide their houses against 
themselves. The ships, ordered in sections from 
Phoenicia, had arrived ; along the quays of Euphrates 
others were in building, while a myriad crew had 
begun to excavate a basin to hold a thousand hulls. 

1 Their compliance, as a matter of fact, left a good deal to be 
desired. Cf. Diod. xviii. 8, and inscriptions and authorities 
quoted in Droysen. 



270 ALEXANDER 

Cruisers sailed out at once to explore the Persian 
Gulf and bring back word of Arabia. But in the 
event they could only report that the peninsula 
would take more time to circumnavigate than Alex- 
ander had imagined ; for the boldest skipper had 
gone no farther than the coast of Oman. Mean- 
while the Emperor was waiting for his lieutenants 
to bring down from Persis the picked Asiatics 
whom he proposed to draft into his Army of the 
West, and he took occasion of the delay to explore 
the waterways on the west of the main stream 
of Euphrates, which creep through a wild tract of 
reedy marsh, full of ruinous tombs of long-for- 
gotten kings. Especially he proposed to see the 
so-called Pallacopas, a canal which acted as a huge 
culvert to draw off the spring inundations into 
the marshes. The cutting and closing of its slimy 
embankments had given annual trouble in default 
of proper sluices, and Alexander now selected a 
spot for a main water-gate, and left instructions to 
his engineers to execute a great work for the better 
regulation of the outflow in the coming summer. 

He returned to Babylon with the spring, to find 
twenty thousand picked Asiatics arrived, and he 
set himself to draft them into the ranks of the 
Grand Army on a new system, probably thought out 
long before. His primary object being half-political, 
he recmired that the Asiatic element should be 
fused entirely with his Macedonians and Greeks. 
This could not be effected to any real purpose by 
simply arming and drilling the new recruits like the 



RECONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY 271 

rest, and letting them rank in distinct brigades. 
Rather it was necessary to incorporate them in the 
Macedonian regiments themselves. This policy, how- 
ever, entailed a further military change of the most 
signal sort. The Oriental recruits were not adapted 
for ordinary phalanx fighting ; to make them adopt 
inordinately long pikes, heavy body-armour and close 
order, was to make inferior heavy files of men who 
had superior capacity for light warfare. Alexander 
was probably not averse on any grounds to a radical 
modification of the old phalanx formation, which 
even his father had never valued very highly. The 
son, so far as we can follow in singularly deficient 
authorities his successive efforts at reorganization, had 
been inspired in every military change by a desire to 
promote greater capacity for division and, by conse- 
quence, greater ease of movement. For some years 
he had been using but seldom the old close formation 
• — even in pitched battle at the Hydaspes his pikemen 
seem to have attacked in open order * — and now that 
he had a steadfast nucleus of veterans, he proposed to 
throw the compact phalanx overboard. The basis of 
the new disposition was to be the file of sixteen. In 
this only the three leaders and the rear-rank man were 
to be Macedonian pikemen ; the core, ranged twelve 
deep in open order, was, throughout the fighting line, 
to be composed of Asiatic archers and throwers of 
missiles. We are told no further details, but we 

1 Cf. a statement of Frontinus (i. 3. 1), that Alexander always 
fought in line (i. e. not in the regular column formation of the 
phalanx), if his army appeared eager for the fray. 



272 ALEXANDER 

may be sure that the general idea implied that the 
light files should sally forth to attack, and retire, 
when charged, behind the triple wall of pike-heads. 
Fate ordained that the new organization should never 
be used in the field by its inventor ; but it is obvious 
that, had he himself survived to discipline and direct 
it, a new infantry array would have come into being 
as much superior in mobility to the old Macedonian 
and Theban formations as the latter in their day 
had been to the Spartan. For, if for no other reason, 
when three-fourths of each file, which formerly could 
only back up the front ranks by its weight or fill the 
places of the slain, was employed in active operations 
of offence and defence, the whole force was become 
vastly more effective. 

We have said that its inventor never used this 
new disposition; and there is no evidence that any 
one else adopted it. Certainly in European Mace- 
donia the older formation held the day until its 
glaring defects were found out by the Roman 
legionaries. The reason is no doubt that no one 
in that age could have fought with Alexander's new 
phalanx except Alexander. He had left it untried, 
and probably largely untrained ; and since it is a 
commonplace of strategy that a mobile force ma- 
noeuvring in many units, while vastly more effective, 
if well handled, than a compact force of few units, 
is fraught with the greater danger if disordered, this 
new mixed phalanx demanded, after its inventor's 
death, first a further organizer, and second a great 
leader. Alexander left behind him many capable 



THE EXPEDITION READY 273 

marshals, but certainly not one heaven-born genius 
in war. 

The drafting seems to have been superintended by 
Alexander in person, for a story, told by a good 
authority, has survived, concerning an omen that 
occurred when the king had been sitting through a 
long day. seeing to the incorporation of the Asiatics. 
Feeling athirst, he rose, and left his throne empty for 
a few moments, during which some crazy creature, 
such as begs in Eastern streets, wandered, no one 
observing, towards the royal chair, and sat himself 
down. The eunuchs, moved by some occult supersti- 
tion, dared not drag him away, but beat their breasts 
for a calamity to come ; and although Alexander had 
the man seized and examined under torture, yet he 
said nothing more than that he had done this thing 
he knew not why, the spirit moving him. 

It was already summer. The Army of the West was 
organized, dock and ships were ready, and captains 
and full crews had been allotted to each vessel. The 
Emperor had fixed the 19th of the current month for 
the start of the division, which was to follow the fleet 
along the coast, and the 20th for his own departure 
for the Gulf. It was now the 14th, and nothing 
remained except the final sacrificial ceremonies and 
festivals of adieu. Huge Babylon thronged in that 
brilliant May with the officers and men of the great 
Expedition, and with embassies and countless officials, 
sent up even from Antipater's vice-royalty of Europe 
to wish the Emperor good speed. 



274 ALEXANDER 

From this point the Court Diary narrates the 
catastrophe, and a historian had best imitate the 
admirable simplicity with which its entries have been 
reproduced by both Arrian and Plutarch, the latter 
expressing a noble sense that no rhetoric or dramatic 
setting can enhance the pathos of the story. On 
the 15th a great feast was given to the Grand Army, 1 
at the expense of the Emperor, who presided in person. 
He would have retired thence to bed, but a Thessa- 
lian officer, one Medius, who seems to have succeeded 
in some way to the privileges of Hephaestion, prayed 
him to honour a parting revel. Alexander consented, 
and stayed through the night. The next evening he 
honoured Medius again, and once more sat long over 
the wine. Towards dawn he rose from table, bathed, 
and breakfasted, but feeling somewhat feverish, ate 
but little before lying down to sleep. He woke after 
a few hours in a high fever, but insisted none the less 
on offering the daily sacrifice, and talking with the 
generals over details of the Expedition, decreed to 
start in three days' time. Thereafter he had himself 
carried to a cool garden-house beyond the river ; 
but the fever did not abate for the change, and 
he had to put off the setting-forth of the Expedi- 
tion first by one day, and then definitely to the 
23rd. On the 21st and 22nd he convened the 
generals again, to remind them that all must be 
ready ; but he was now very ill, and, needless to say, 
on the 23rd no corps moved from Babylon. The 
Emperor, none the less, talked still in half-delirium 

1 Or to the crews of the fleet only? (Plut. Alex. 75). 



THE END 275 

of the start, and on the morrow, taking a fancy 
that the commanders must stay nearer to him, had 
himself carried back to the great Palace in the 
city, where they could wait in the ante-chambers ; 
but when they came into his presence he could not 
utter a word. For two days and nights the fever 
raged still more fiercely, and on the 27th 1 a clamour 
rose in the ranks of the Grand Army that the 
Emperor was already dead, and the generals were 
hiding the fact. Veterans gathered thick about the 
palace gates, demanding admission to the death- 
chamber, until, for fear of mutiny, the chamberlains 
were forced to admit them in Indian file : and so the 
old spearmen of the Asian Conquest passed in a last 
review before their Captain, but he " could not speak, 
and only touched the right hand of each, and raised 
his head a little, and signed with his eyes." That 
night certain of the marshals kept vigil in the fane 
of Serapis, seeking a sign that they should convey 
the Emperor, as a last hope, to the presence of the 
god. But a voice from the night bade them let him 
be, and towards sundown of the 28th Alexander died. 2 
We are told that deep silence fell upon the great city 
and camp of Babylon for four days and four nights, 
each man looking helplessly to his helpless neighbour ; 

1 Plutarch, using also the royal journal, puts this event a day 
earlier, and leaves about thirty-six hours between the vigil of the 
marshals in the temple and the end. 

2 The symptoms and cause of this malady have been treated, 
though somewhat cursorily, by E. Littre (Sur la maladie d'A. 
le G. Paris, 1842) : the doctor decides positively against poison. 
Without this expert opinion, the question would be even less easy to 



276 ALEXANDER 

and thereafter, the embalmed body lay other thirty 
days while there was being decided the first tussle 
of that funeral contest, which, grimly foretold by 
the dying Emperor, would shake his empire from 
sea to sea. The great Expedition of conquest never 
started ; the Grand Army never fought again under 
one leader ; the Empire never owned a second single 

decide than that other, which arises from Alexander's death — Did 
he leave any will, or depute any successor to his empire? A 
death-bed partition of the world by him was a favourite fancy 
of romanticists and rhetoricians ; we find it as early as the First 
Book of Maccabees (i. 6) — " He parted his kingdom among them, 
while he was yet alive;" — and it reappears in all versions and 
derivatives of the Romance cycle. But against it we have the 
weighty negative evidence of the better historians, who repeat 
nothing but his whisper, "t<3 KpaTto-rw," — "to the best man." 
In fact, by the time Alexander could realize that he was in clanger 
he had become almost incapable of speech and half-delirious ; and 
it should be noted that the Army acted after his death as if 
entirely unguided by any word of their dead Captain. His last 
despatches, opened by Craterus in Cilicia, seem to have been 
in no sense testamentary. 

As to the poison question, circumstantial evidence would leave 
the decision very doubtful. On the one hand, we have Plutarch's 
statement that no hint of it was heard for six years, until Olympias 
found she could use it as a charge against Cassander ; and the further 
fact that, whatever fears Antipater and Cassander might have 
entertained, they were about to be left in peace for many years 
while the Emperor was conquering the West. On the other hand, 
it must be said that suspicion of poison attaches so inevitably to a 
royal death-bed in the East, that it is almost incredible that nothing 
should have been said in this case for six years, unless it was the 
interest of some one in power to suppress what was a well-known 
fact. Alexander's recent developments of imperial impartiality 
supplied motive enough to unmitigated Macedonians like Antipater 
and his son ; and the accounts of the poisoning, though con- 
flicting, are precise enough. On the whole, we may fall back with 
thankfulness, though without entire conviction, on the expert 
decision of the question. 



PERMANENCE OF ALEXANDER'S WORK 277 

Emperor ; the desti n ies of the West were left to be 
settled by Carthage and by Rome. But although 
nothing that Alexander left unfinished at his death 
was done by another as he himself would have clone 
it, very little that, indeed, he had done was ever 
undone. No part of the vast area, that he had 
traversed this side the Indus, was governed for 
many centuries but by an administration western 
in origin or in type. Greece never recovered an 
independent voice to recall her sons from their 
mission in the ends of the earth, and Hellenisticism 



grew steadily out of Hellenism. Alexander's own 
principle and model of col onization, the general 
scheme of his provincial organization, the channels 
into which half-unconsciously he had directed trade, 
his types and standards of currency, and the military 
system of his father and himself, held good until, and 
even beyond, the coming of Rome. He did more 
than any single man to break "clown that proud 
division of the world into few Greeks and myriad 
barbarians, which had stimulated the seed of civiliza- 
tion, but was become a cramping and suffocating 
influence on the grown plant. He did more than any 
single man up to his day to m ake one part of the 
world known to the other, and, unconsciously enough, 
so to widen the application of his great tutor's principle 
of social organization, that little more than three cen- 
turies later a Church became possible which contained 
Jews, Greeks, and Latins, " Parthians, and Medes, 
and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia." 
The personal figure of Alexander has never suffered 



278 ALEXANDER 

eclipse. Because his empire in no part, but the 
Indian, reverted to what it had been before him, he 
himself put on instant immortality as the political 
o-od of his legacy of kingdoms from the Oxus to 
the Nile. For many generations idealized portraits 
stamped on coins kept his individuality in mind over 
well-nigh all the world. The Seleucid Empire, the 
Ptolemaic kingdom of Egypt, and the original realm 
of Macedon maintained a worship of him as the 
genius of Hellenistic rule. Groves and games, altars 
and images 2 took his name, and he seems to have 
been promoted definitely, even by the Senate of 
Rome, to a thirteenth throne in the august circle 
of Olympus. The organizer of that, greater empire, 
which absorbed nearly all that Alexander had won, 
and under whose system in a sense we live still, set 
him up as chief of his gods. Augustus not only 
paid to Alexander divine honours, and used his 
effigy as the imperial signet, but imitated, we are 
told, the knitting of the brows which was habitual to 
the Macedonian, and that famous inclination of his 
beautiful head towards the left shoulder, which the 
Marshals and Successors had affected, and we hear 
of as a fashion still in the time of Severus. 2 

This cult of a Hellenistic Genius supplied a model 
for the establishment of the universal worship of the 

1 See, e.g. Strabo, p. 644 (Clazomenee) ; Amm. Marcell. 22. 8 
(Borystlienes) ; Clem. Alex. Coh. ad Gent. p. 211. A. ed. Migne 
(Alexandria) ; Chrvsost. vol. xi. p. 240 (Antioch). 

2 See Clem. Alex. I.e. ; Cyril, c. Julian, vi. p. 205; Chrvsost. 
In Ep. 2 ad Cor. Horn. 26, p. 580; Suet. Aug. 18, 50; AureL 
Vict. Epit. xxi. 4, p. 211 ; Themist. Orat 13, p. 175, B. 








ALEXANDER DEIFIED AS AMMON 
Coins Of Sysimachus— British Museum 



ALEXANDER IMMORTAL 279 

Genius of Roman Empire. But, unlike Augustus, 
Alexander the man was never lost in an impersonal 
system. He had been so pre-eminent above his 
followers in almost all his powers, he had done so 
much of his w r ork with his own hand, and exalted so 
conspicuously his own personality always and every- 
where, that in tradition and legend his individuality 
could not die. Him the Parsees curse still as the 
destroyer of their sacred books at Persepolis ; he, as 
Iskender D'hulkarnein, or el Junani, " the Ionian," is 
reverenced still as mythic founder of nearly every 
old city from the Euphrates to the frontier of China. 
The making of his myth began early. At the very 
first the mere possession of his body had been ac- 
counted the best of all title-deeds in the scarcely 
established order of things ; and the dispute for its 
possession, the gorgeous funeral train which after 
the lapse of a year set out with it for Damascus, the 
beauty of the sarcophagus, in which it was conveyed 
to Memphis, and the splendour of its ultimate in- 
stallation in Alexandria, were hardly less notorious 
than the living man had been. And if Alexandria 
ascribed the birth of its fame to Alexander, Alexander 
in turn has owed much of his own undying memory 
to Alexandria. For whereas the tombs of Roman 
Emperors rose outside a capital which had seen 
centuries of greatness before them, and rulers as 
conspicuous since their clay, Alexander lay in the 
heart of a city he had himself created, and in 
which he was the first and only Emperor. The two 
main streets of the town met and crossed before 



280 ALEXANDER 

his mausoleum. Round about it, in reverent sub- 
ordination, were laid the generations of the royal 
dead of Egypt. The facade of the Museum, focus 
of Hellenic culture, and resort of the civilized world, 
faced across to his sepulchre. No god displaced 
Alexander there. Emperors of Rome, who came to 
his city, Augustus and Severus, made pilgrimage 
first to his tomb, and paid homage to his embalmed 
corpse ; 1 and still at this day, after a dozen centuries 
of decline, and three generations of rapid renewing, 
the holiest place in Alexandria is believed to conceal 
Alexander's grave. 

Nor is this all. Long after Clement could point 
in fervid exultation to the ruined tomb of the 
city-god, whose mortality had been proved at 
Babylon, even after Islam had swept over all his 
empire, Alexander was still growing in name and 
fame. The ubiquitous traditions of his actual words 
and deeds, the local identifications of him with older 
folk-heroes, which cropped up presently over all the 
western East, and most in Hellenistic Egypt, were 
collected from time to time, and made the basis 
of popular tales ; and at last, probably about the 
third century of our era, all were crystallized into 
a single work of romance, which in a thousand years 
passed into more men's ears, and became the spring 
and basis of more literature, than any record of true 
history. The Greek Romance, whose earliest form 
has come down to us under a false name of the 
historian Callisthenes, strings on a tangled thread of 

1 Suet. Aug. 18; Dio. lxxv. 13. 




ALEXANDER DEIFIED AS HERCULES IN ROMAN TIMES 
Tarsus Medallion-Cabinet de France 



ALEXANDER IN ROMANCE 281 

Alexander's real words and acts a fascinating broidery 
of those marvels and moralities which are the com- 
mon heritage of half the world. From the Greek it 
has passed to Latin, to Syriac, to Ethiopic, to Ara- 
bic, to Hebrew, to Samaritan, to Armenian, to 
Persian ; from the Latin to early English, to 
French, to German, to Italian, even to Scandinavian. 
Through this universal cycle Alexander took on new 
immortality as the evidence of his actual works on 
earth grew fainter. Islam itself adopted him among 
her Prophets, and carried his forgotten fame back 
into India. A world that he himself never saw, on 
the Ganges 1 and the Blue Nile, in Britain and in 
Provence, became familiar with his name ; until his 
romance ended by ousting his history from Byzan- 
tine chroniclers, and still, by a curious irony, en- 
grosses most the attention of scholars. 2 

Independently, however, of all myth or romance, 
Alexander has been received into the small circle of 

1 See especially Spiegel, Die Alexandersage bei den Orientalen, 
and chap. 6 of the fifth book of the same author's monumental 
Eranische A IterthumsJcunde. 

2 Within a very few years, we have had elaborate works pro- 
duced in England by Dr. Wallis Budge on the Syriac and Ethiopic 
versions. The early French, the early English, and texts of the 
Latin versions, have been published in a generation which has 
seen no critical edition of Arrian or Plutarch. Articles and 
inaugural dissertations on this subject succeed one another in 
Germany, and recently Th. Reinach has published a fragment of 
a new Greek version (Revue des Etudes Grecques, 1892, p. 306). 
Indeed, to, obtain the reward of public interest for a real addi- 
tion to knowledge, a scholar could not do better now than 
re-edit the original pseudo-Callisthenes, disentangling its skeins, 
arriving through the versions at its earliest form, and showing 



282 ALEXANDER 

the Great. The proud title is his not as conscious 
apostle of light any more than as " gurges ille miseri- 
arum atque atrocissimus turbo totius Orientis," * but 
because, having the greatest powers, he set up the 
greatest aims consistent with his day, and pursued 
them greatly. Philip lives hardly outside the world 
of scholars. The son is still a master to all masters 
in war, and his type has been chosen by Art for the 
Hero. Judge how we may his intentions and his 
acts, this at least cannot be doubted, that since so 
much that he said and did, and so much that is 
credited to him, has passed into the common thought 
and speech of mankind, saint or sinner, devil or god, 
Alexander is among the Immortals. 

what amount of real tradition and genuine folk-lore it embodies : 
and he will find considerable help in the recently published work 
of E. Raabe ('IoTopia 'AAe£avSpou. Leipz. 189fi), who has rendered 
the Mechitarist text of the very early Armenian version back into 
Greek. 

1 Orosius, Hist. iii. 7. 



y 




ALEXANDER IMMORTAL 
Tarsus Medallion — Cabinet cle France 



APPENDIX 



On Questions of Chronology in Alexander's Reign 

Since the accepted schedule of Greek chronology was drawn 
out, mainly by Ideler and Clinton, there have not been 
, wanting scholars to call the foundations of the whole system 
in question ; and we may yet be asked to renounce even 
those cardinal dates which, calculated on certain eclipses, 
have served for starting and correcting points. Whenever 
that revolution takes place the reigns of Philip and Alexander 
no doubt will have to be moved back or forward en bloc. 
But since those wholesale processes can hardly make any 
difference to the actual consecution of events, and since, 
relatively to one another, the items of the careers of both 
kings will maintain their position, for the present we may 
leave the larger question alone and make inquiry only into 
the relative dating of certain events in the reign of Alexander, 
which have been subject of controversy J or need to be dis- 
cussed. These fall into two divisions : — 

(A.) The cardinal dates of Alexander's Birth, Accession, 
and Death. 

1 The works to which I shall refer directly or indirectly most often are 
Ideler, Ueber das Todcsjahr A. des G. (Abhalidl. d. Berlin. Akad., 1820), 
and Handb. d. math, und techn. Clironologie ; Droysen, Hellenismus, vol. 
i., Fr. tr., app. vi.; Clinton, Fasti Hcllcnici, vol. ii. ; Unger in L. v. Midler's 
Handb. der Mass. Alterthums- Wissenschaft, pp. 773 ff. ; Schrader, De 
Ahxandri M. vitae tempore (Bonn, 1889) ; Kohn, Ephemeridcs rerum 
ab Alexandro M. in partibus orientis gestarum (Bonn, 1890) ; and the 
histories of Thirlwall, Grote, A. Holm, and B. Niese. 



284 APPENDIX 

(B.) The disposition of events within those termini, more 
especially during those parts of the years 330-327 
which the Grand Army spent between the Caspian 
and the Indus. 



On the cardinal dates I do not differ materially from the 
resultant of the views of Unger and Schrader, accepted in 
essence by Kohn, and based largely on an observation con- 
cerning the Olympic periods communicated by H. Nissen to 
the Bheinisches Museum in 1885 (vol. xl. pp. 350 ff. ) ; and I 
should not discuss those dates here at all if it were not that 
the latest views are not very well known or accessible, and that 
the second matter, viz. the disposition of events between the 
cardinal points (v. infra, B. ), can hardly be expounded clearly 
except in sequence to a preliminary statement of the termini. 

There can be no serious question as to the total duration 
of either Alexander's life or his reign. These are stated by 
Arrian (vii. 28) on the express authority of Aristobulus, 
the most trustworthy contemporary and companion of the 
Emperor, as 

Life 32 years, 8 months. 

Eeign 12 years, 8 months. 

By consequence, Alexander must have been just about 20 
years of age at his Accession, as indeed he is explicitly stated 
to have been by Arrian (i. 1) and Plutarch (Alex. 11). 

It is to be noted, before we pass on, that the month -numeral 
in this passage of Arrian is the less possibly erroneous, since it 
is repeated — /cat tovs oktco /ir/vat — and since Diodorus, the 
only other surviving authority (except Eusebius, 1 whose 
numerals are both corrupt and contradictory) who attempts 
precision, varies only by one month (xvii. 117). 2 

1 Like Clement of Alexandria, who quotes from Eratosthenes, Eusebius 
in one passage gives a round number of twelve years, and divides it into 
equal halves by the death of Darius. 

2 The fact that only eight years are assigned to Alexander's reign in 
Egypt cannot be made much use of in the absence of certainty as to the 



APPENDIX 285 

Within what precise yearly and monthly points, however, 
do these periods of Alexander's life and reign lie ? It is obvious 
that any one of these three cardinal points, if certainly 
ascertained, will serve to fix the others. 

Fortunately, though there are no eclipses to help us, two 
of the points can be connected with that great standby of 
chronologists of antiquity — the Olympic Games. Plutarch, 
in a well-known synchronistic passage (Alex. 3), and again in 
Consol. ad Apoll. 6 (if that treatise be Plutarch's), mentions 
that Philip received at the same time, under the walls of 
Potidaea, news of the birth of his son, of a successful battle 
in Illyria against the northern hillmen, and of the victory of 
his team at Olympia. There is no reason to question the 
main fact of this synchronism, for Greek memory was tena- 
cious of nothing so much as Olympic records. The three 
announcements may be taken to have arrived near enough 
to one another for the new-born babe, as Schrader acutely 
observes, to be reputed ever afterwards " The child of two 
victories. " 

The year of birth, therefore, being a multiple of four, can 
be no other than 356, unless the whole system of Greek 
chronology, as at present accepted, is to be thrown overboard. 
For in 360 Philip was hardly yet seated on his throne ; in 
352 he was certainly not besieging Potidaea. Furthermore, 
we know that Eratosthenes fixed Philip's murder to 
Olympiad cxi. 1, i.e. 336-335, at which time Alexander was 
about twenty years of age. Any one of the surviving express 
statements of Eratosthenes is held rightly to be weighty 
evidence, and for all practical purposes we may safely follow 
it, and, counting back twenty years, fix 356 as the year of 
Alexander's birth. 

The month raises the more difficult question. According 



date from which that computation starts — whether, in fact, from Alexander's 
first entry into the country, or his coming to Memphis, or his foundation 
of Alexandria, or his second coining to Memphis, when he settled the 
system of government. The actual entry into Egypt may have heen made 
any time from October (Unger, Chron. dcs Manetho) to December, 332. 



2SG APPENDIX 

to Aristobulus' statement, we must reckon thirty-two years 
and eight months to Alexander's death. Now there are some 
independent grounds for believing that the Emperor died not 
before the summer of the year. There is a not very sure 
allusion in Quintus Curtius (x. 10. 31) to the heat prevailing 
at the time ; there is a mure sound argument to be deduced 
from the fact that whereas Alexander was still in or about 
Hamadan in winter-time (for the snows lay deep in the 
Cossaean mountains during his campaign there), he had still 
to accomplish the march to Babylon and there to do great 
works of reorganization and preparation, which were com- 
pleted ere his death. But even more consideration is to 
be attached to a probability that Alexander, about to sail 
by way of the Persian Gulf into the Indian Ocean, must 
have taken the monsoons into account. Two years earlier 
he had based his calculations for Nearchus' voyage upon the 
seasons of those winds, and since that voyage he must have 
become still better informed of them and more convinced 
of their influence. He would time his start so as at least 
to avoid the soutJi-ivest monsoon, if not immediately to get 
the benefit of the north-east monsoon on emerging from the 
Gulf, and as the latter wind begins to blow in November, 1 if we 
make the most liberal allowance possible for the voyage down 
the Shatt-el-Arab,with all the initial delays concomitant with 
so large an expedition, and for the coasting voyage and 
conquest of the littoral of Arabia on the west of the Gulf 
as far as Eas Mussendom, we can hardly set the projected 
start farther back than the very end of May. 

If Aristobulus' eight odd months are reckoned backwards 
from such a date, we find ourselves in the early autumn, and 
must place Alexander's birthday in October. How will this 
month accord, however, with the coincidence of his birth 
and the Olympic Games? The latter usually have been 

1 See a valuable note in General Haig's Indus Delta (1894), p. 16. 
The south-west monsoon, according to General Haig, ceases in September, 
so that Alexander might have timed himself to start west during the 
interval of calm. See infra, p. 294. 



APPENDIX 287 

supposed to have opened with the first full moon after the 
summer solstice, 1 and the gap between the news of an 
Olympic victory in July reaching Philip (a matter of a week 
at most), and October is rather wide even for a Greek 
synchronist. In an article published in 1885, 2 however, 
H. Nissen drew attention to certain scholia on Pindar (01. iii. 
35, 33) which do not square with the received view as to 
the month-date of the Olympic Games ; and from the state- 
ments in these scholia he derived an Olympic cycle, in 
accordance with which the festival opened on dates varying 
over a period of two months, and in this particular year 356 
began as late as September 27. This calculation, which 
was made without reference to any controversy concerning 
Alexander's life, has been adopted in principle by later 
inquirers, 3 and, in fact, it tallies so singularly with the neces- 
sities of Alexander's case, as well as with other points in 
Greek history, 4 that, personally, I have no hesitation in accept- 
ing it and fixing Alexander's birth early in October, 356. 

On this reckoning, Alexander's Accession must have taken 
place about the same month in 336. The actual date should 
be placed rather earlier than later, as time has to be allowed 
for a military demonstration in Greece before the winter. 

Alexander's Death must be dated to June, 323, 5 considerably 
less than a year after the Olympic festival of 324, at which 
(/3pa^et %poW irporepov tt}? TeXevrrjs, Diod. xviii. 8) his 



1 E. cf. by the latest historian, B. Niese, to judge by the date he assigns 
to Alexander's birth (GcscJnchte, p. 51). Clinton's dates are of course 
all based on this belief, and it forces him to add two months to Aristobulus' 
statement of the duration of Alexander's reign. See also A. Mommsen, 
Ueber die Zcit der Olympien, 1891, pp. SO ff. 

2 Cit, supra, 

3 E.g. Schrader and Kohn, opp. cit. supra. TJnger has doubts, but quotes. 

4 Cf. Nissen 's article. 

5 = Jvme 13th, according to German chronologists (TJnger, Kohn), while 
the birthday = October 3rd. But Schrader is surely right in abstaining 
from such precise dating, which can only rest on the unsound month- 
computations of ancient chroniclers, e. g. the pseudo-Callisthenes ! (TJnger.) 
The old views about the death-date are to be found in Ideler, Todes- 
jahr, etc. 



288 APPENDIX 

Decree concerning political exiles was promulgated. This 
dating makes it possible and probable that the Greek embassies 
which came to Alexander on his road towards and arrival 
at Babylon, were concerned with that Decree. 



B. 

It will be observed that I have taken no account of 
precise statements by Plutarch or others as to the actual 
Attic or Macedonian months in which any of the events 
discussed above took place ; and, following Droysen in his 
criticism of Ideler (I.e. ), 1 1 should recommend a like reserve 
as to all the month-dates given for intermediate events by 
Arrian, 2 or Plutarch. 3 The grounds of such reserve are, that 

(a) those recorded in the Macedonian calendar cannot be 
fixed at present with any adequate certainty on the ex- 
tremely scanty and conflicting data which we have as to 
that calendar, its synchronisms and its adjustments, in the 
period of Alexander — data which acquire no greater pre- 
cision by comparison with another most dubious system, the 
Egyptian of Ptolemaic times (see Unger, op. cit. p. 776) ; 

(b) those month-dates that are recorded in terms of the Attic 
calendar have been converted from the Macedonian on a 
system or systems which are unknown to us, and, in face 
of the utter inconsistency of, e. g. Plutarch's adjustments 
(v. Droysen, I.e.), they cannot be relied on for a moment. 
There is also one doubtful month-date given in the Jidian 
calendar by Justin 4 (=Trogus Pompeius), viz. mense Junto, 
for Alexander's death. This., though probably correct, we will 
ignore likewise and on the same grounds, the more readily 

1 Cf. also Kohn, op. cit. pp. 6 ff. But Kiese uses the month-dates 
freely. 

2 Anal. ii. 11, Issus ; 24, fall of Tyre ; iii. 7, passage of Euphrates ; 15, 
Arbela ; 22, death of Darius ; v. 19, battle of Hydaspes ; hid. 21, start of 
Nearchus. 

8 Alex. 16, Granicus ; Cwm.Ul. 19, Arbela. 

4 xii. 16. The synchronistic passage in ^Elian ( V. H. ii. 25) is not worthy 
of serious consideration. 



APPENDIX 289 

since the reading of the manuscripts is subject to the variants 
mensem unum and mense uno. 

I will venture, therefore, in dealing with events in 
Alexander's life between the fixed termini, to proceed rather 
upon a Thucydidean system of summers and winters, checked 
by certain definite records of the duration of particular enter- 
prises. We have one astronomical fixed date in the first 
half of Alexander's reign, namely, the lunar eclipse which 
preceded by a few days the battle of Arbela. This has been 
calculated for the night of September 20-21, 331. x Plutarch 
states that the camps were pitched in sight of each other for 
the first time on the eleventh day after that eclipse ; and 
thus we arrive with sufficient certainty at October 1st 
as the date of the actual battle. 

Neither before Arbela nor after it until the death of 
Darius, is there any serious question of chronology. The 
last-named event took place in the course of the year 
succeeding Arbela, and it can be calculated within very 
narrow limits of error from the fixed date of that battle. 
We have to allow for — 

March to Babylon, at least 40 days 2 

Halt in Babylon ... 34 " (Curt. v. 1 ; Just. xi. 14) 3 

March to Susa . ... 20 " (Arr. iii. 16) 

Stay in Susa . . . . x " 



1 Doubts have been raised about these eclipse computations ; but I am 
assured by astronomers that they are practically subject to no doubt. This 
particular eclipse is the first in history for which we have recorded observa- 
tions in more than one place. See G. Hofman, Sonnen- und Mondfinsternisse, 
p. 28 ; Oppolzer, Canon der Finstcrnisse, p. 338 ; and Ideler, Handbuch der 
Chronologic, i. 347. 

2 Murray's Guidebook to Asiatic Turkey (new ed. 1895) gives eighty-two 
hours from Mosul to Baghdad, and sixteen from Baghdad to Babylon. This 
is equivalent to about three hundred miles. To march this distance, about 
thirty days are necessary, and ten more must be added for halts, crossing of 
Tigris, etc. 

3 Q. Curtius may be used where rhetoric and romance do not come in. The 
remarkable coincidence of his work with Justin's Epitome suggests that 
Tragus Pompeius himself, rather than Greek chroniclers, is the foundation of 
Curtius' history. 

19 



290 



APPENDIX 






March to Persepolis . . 30 


days 


i 


Stay in Persia .... 120 


" 


(Plut. Alex. 27) 2 


March to Ecbatana . . 12 -+• x 


" 


(Arr. iii. 19) 


Stay in Ecbatana . . . x 


" 




March to Rhagae ... 11 


" 


(Arr. iii. 20) 


Stay in Rhagae ... 5 


" 


(Arr. iii. 20) 


Last stages of the pursuit 5 




(Arr. iii. 21) 



Total 277 + x days. 

The death of Darius, therefore, took place near Shahrud, 
about the three hundredth day after Arbela, i. e. at the very 
end of July or beginning of August, 330. This, as it happens, 
coincides, according to received computation, with Arrian's 
statement (iii. 22) that the month of the murder was the 
Attic Hecatombaeon. 

Alexander gave up further pursuit of the satraps, and 
returned to pick up his stragglers and heavy column some- 
where near Semnun. The events, therefore, of Alexander's 
latter years have to be fitted in time and place between 
two points fixed chronologically and geographically : — 

Early August, 330. Semnun. 
Early June, 323. Babylon. 

The period withiu these limits is portioned out less satis- 
factorily and with less certainty than the first half of 
Alexander's reign, largely because the scene of action was 
for the most part geographically so little known to his 
chroniclers. 3 In considering this period, we must call in geo- 
graphy to help chronology, and chronology to help geography. 

1 Tt is to be borne in mind that Alexander was interfered with on this 
march, first by the Uxians, secondly, and more seriously, by Ariobarzanes. 
The distance is about 4,200 stades. Curtius (v. 4. 18) states that Persis was 
already under deep snow. 

2 Curtius (v. 6. 21) gives details of a winter campaign in the hills of Persis, 
lasting thirty days. This fact is confirmed by Arr. Ind. 40. 

8 Perhaps also because the most learned and orderly of the contemporary 
chronicles, that of Callisthenes, ended with Darius' death, or shortly after 
that event. The author was put in chains in Bactria early in 327, and exe- 
cuted not long afterwards. 



APPENDIX 291 

Sure results cannot be hoped for where the site of hardly 
a single town mentioned by the chroniclers is known 
beyond question, and before really satisfactory study can be 
made of the subject the exploring scholar must go through 
Central Asia. In the mean time we can perhaps show what 
is possible or what impossible, and the boundaries of our 
ignorance. 

We are often left in so much uncertainty about the exact 
line of Alexander's marches in the far East, and so seldom 
are told the duration of his halts, 1 that it would be perfectly 
futile to attempt to calculate his progress by the method 
employed above to determine the date of the death of Darius. 
But in the course of these years we have certain facls 
recorded as to times and seasons, which, proceeding from 
actual observation of eye-witnesses, 2 may be set forth and 
used as a base, although one far from assured : — 

(a.) Alexander marched through the Paropamisadae vtto 
7r\eiaSo<? hvaiv, hills and passes being blocked with snow. 
He kept the high range of Hindu Kush on his left hand, 
and wintered below the mountains, having India to his 
right hand, and built a city. Thence he crossed the 
chain, and in fifteen days from his winter quarters 
reached Adrapsa in Bactria (Strabo, pp. 724-5). 
(b. ) When Alexander was on the Jaxartes (Sir Daria) it 
was high summer. The watercourse at Cyropolis was 
dry (Arr. iv. 3), and terrible heat was experienced 
during the raid across the river (ibid. iv. 4). 
(c. ) The army left the Paropamisadae fiera Svc-fias 
7r\7]td8(ov, and was in Khond and Chitral in winter time 
(Aristobulus, ap. Strabon. p. 691). 
(d.) The Indus was crossed obviously when not in flood, 
i. e. before spring was far advanced. 



1 I am obliged to ignore Curtius in this connection, since he never gives 
his authorities. Not hut what he often enough squares with facts, as 
F. v. Schwarz sufficiently shows (A. d. G. Feldziige in Turkestan, 
passim.) 

2 Ex hypothesi I ignore the few month-dates that are given us ; v. supra. 



292 APPENDIX 

(c. ) The army " went down " into India at the beginning 
of spring (Aristobulus, I.e.). 

(/.) Rains began after the army left Taxila (Aristobul. 
I.e. ). The Jhelum is represented as running 1200 yards 
broad when the army reached it, t\v yap copa eVou? y 
p.era rpoiras fidXiara iv Oepei rpeireTai 6 tJXlos (Arr. 
v. 9). 

(g. ) Some section of the army was encamped near the 
bank of the Chcnab Kara OepLvas rpoird^ (Nearchus, ap. 
Strab. p. 692). 

(h. ) The rains continued all along the march to the Sutlej 
and back to the Jhelum, with etesian winds (= south- 
west monsoon) (Aristobul. 1. c. ). 

(i.) The flotilla started down the Jhelum, Trpb Svaeco<i 
7rX,7/iaSo? ov 7roX\at<? ^fiepaif, and in fine weather. It 
arrived in the district of Pattala, irepl kvvos imroXrjv, 
after ten months' voyage. 1 It had experienced no rainy 
weather, but the Indus was in full flood. The summer 
monsoons were still blowing out at sea (Aristobul. 1. c. ). 

(J.) Nearchus, one month after Alexander had left for 
Oritis, started Kara 7rXemSo? iiriToXrjv ecrirepiav, the mon- 
soons not yet being favourable (Nearchus, ap. Strabon. 
p. 721). In the end he had to lie to for twenty-four 
days in the interval between the summer and winter 
monsoons (Arr. Ind. 21). 

(Jc. ) The voyage of Nearchus took, as nearly as can be 
calculated from the itinerary in Arrian's Indica, eighty 
days in all, up to Harmozia on the Persian Gulf, near 
which place Alexander had arrived already. 

(I. ) Alexander's Decree for the Amnesty of Exiles was read 
at an Olympic festival ; this must fall in late summer, 324. 
The Decree must have been despatched from Asia at 
least four months before. It seems probable, therefore, 
that Alexander was back in the west of his empire 

1 Five months, Pliny, iV. H. vi. 60, and seven months, Pint. Ahx. 66. 
Perhaps Plutarch is reckoning time of actual sailing only, exclusive of halts. 



APPENDIX 293 

by April, 324. (Diod. xviii. 8 ; Dinarcli. in Devi. 
100. 28.) 
(m.) When Alexander was raiding the Cossaean hillmen 
near Ecbatana, there was much snow. He had cele- 
brated the Dionysia before this at Ecbatana. If this 
festival corresponded to the Athenian usage, as is prob- 
able, it must have been held in October. 
(n. ) When Alexander was in the marshes near Babylon, 
inspecting the Pallacopas canal, it would seem as though 
the early spring floods were over, and he was in a position 
to see the damage they had done. 
If these data are taken as check-points, it will be observed 
that three years are satisfactorily accounted for. From 
point (c), when the army is in the Cabul basin, to point 
(I), when it is in Persis or Susiana, there is no serious gap. 
At the period of the setting of the Pleiads (middle of 
November) in a certain year, Alexander was still near Cabul ; 1 
in the succeeding months of winter he prosecuted his Ivhond 
and Chitral campaign, and crossed the Indus in very early 
spring of the following year, before the high snows had 
melted. He left Taxila just as the rains began (i. e. in April), 
and was on the Jhelum when that river was already con- 
siderably swollen, as is the case in May. There a delay ensued 
owing to the difficulty of forcing the passage against Porus, 
and the actual battle of the Hydaspes was not fought till 
about midsummer. The distance from the Jhelum to the 
bank of the Chenab is so small (hardly above forty miles 
on this line) that there is really no difficulty about points (/) 
and (g), allowance being made for a little laxity in statements 



1 Four or five months seems a long time for Alexander to have delayed in 
the Cabul district. But it must he remembered that not only had he to 
reconstitute Alexandria, ad Caucasum (Arr. iv. 22. 5), hut, apparently, to 
found or refound several other cities (cf. Diod. xvii. 83, and Pliny, N. H. 
vi. 23, 92^. Among the latter was probably the original Cabul itself, Orfox- 
pr/'/ia, now renamed Niccea. Among new foundations were perhaps Pliny's 
Carfoyia and Cadrusi, and Stephen of Byzantium's 5th Alexandria, ev ttj 
'Q-mavfi kcltcl rtju '\vb~iK-?)v, which General Cunningham would identify with the 
modern Afghan village of Opian. 



294 APPENDIX 

made (as Droysen acutely remarks) merely to explain the rise 
of the rivers, not to fix dates. The forward march to the 
Sutlej and the return to the Jhelum would fall easily within 
the latter Eains. After a halt to prepare for the voyage, the 
start of the river flotilla took place a few days before the 
setting of the Pleiads (i.e. early in November). The final 
docking of the fleet at the -apex of the Delta of the Indus 
was at the flood time, about the rising of the dog star and 
during the prevalence of the monsoons at sea. This period 
suits well enough with August. Nearchus started about the 
evening rising of the Pleiads in the interval between the 
monsoons. x According to the calculations of Fb'rster, given 
by Droysen (p. 794), the Pleiads rose at the Indus mouth in this 
year on October 12th. I cannot agree with Droysen that 
merely conventional mean risings and settings of the Pleiads 
are intended in these astronomical quotations from Alexander's 
generals. These statements are far more likely to be based 
on actual observations recorded at the time by Aristobulus 
and Nearchus, and good for the particular latitudes and 
longitudes in which the observers happened to be. In 
countries where the seasons were very different to those 
of their home, the strangers would naturally have turned 
for guidance to familiar stars and have observed their risings 
and settings precisely enough. The winter monsoons begin 
to blow ordinarily in the Indian Ocean in November. 



1 There is a difficulty here. Gen. Haig (note cit. p. 286) who knows 
Sindh well, says, "The violence of the south-west monsoon is past by the 
middle of August, and a month later the wind drops almost entirely." 
The period at which, according to the reckoning given above, Nearchus 
started, is invariably the calmest in the whole year. Yet twenty-four 
days' continuous gales were experienced. If Aristobulus' statement as to 
the duration of the river voyage (ten months), and the astronomical 
coincidences, are not to be rejected, these storms must be set down as an 
extraordinary occurrence. If the astronomical coincidences are thrown 
overboard, then w.e might reckon with Plutarch the voyage at seven 
months, bring Alexander to Pattala in June, and date the start of 
Nearchus to July, and his arrival in the Persian Gulf to October. The 
chronology of the rest of the three years would hardly be affected in 
any case. 



APPENDIX 295 

The reckoning deduced from the Indica 1 brings Nearchus to 
Harmozia about the New Year, and Alexander to Persis and 
Susiana easily enough by the middle of spring. 

As Alexander came south through Hindu Kush after a 
spring campaign in Bactria, we can date his passage to the 
summer of a certain year, and thence until full spring or 
summer three years later his movements can be traced 
sufficiently well both in time and place. 

Indeed there is not much more doubt for the remainder of 
the time up to Alexander's death. The Emperor went north- 
wards in the late summer, marched up to Ecbatana in fifty 
days, 2 and spent autumn and early winter there, raiding the 
Cossaean hillmen after Hephaestion's death. He came to 
Babylon early in the succeeding year, 323, and died in June. 

Therefore we can now reckon back from the fixed date, June, 
323, without interruption through four years, and establish 
the fact that Alexander recrossed Hindu Kush in the summer 
of 327. 

There remain three years reckoned back to the end of 
July, 330, within which fall the conquest of Hyrcania 
(Mazenderan), the march through Khorasan, northern Seistan, 
and Afghanistan, to the passes of Hindu Kush above Cabul ; 
the passage of that great range ; the advance to Balkh, thence 
to the Oxus, and thence to the Sir Daria; the protracted 
conquest of all Turkestan south thereof, and the return to 
the neighbourhood of Cabul. 

In this period, if we omit, for the moment, all reference 
to Arrian, Diodorus, or Curtius, we have for chronological 
guides only the statement of Aristobulus, quoted by Strabo, 
that part of the Afghan march was made about November, 
and the inference about the season at which the army was 
on the Sir Daria, quoted above on p. 291 (a.) (b.). 

Chronologists have agreed to fix the arrival of Alexander 

1 See Vincent, Voyage of Nearchus, p. 340 and previous. 

2 Diod. xvii. 110. 



296 APPENDIX 

at Hindu Kush to December, 330, have brought him to 
the Sir Daria in the summer of 329, and have allowed the 
balance of that year, all the year succeeding, and the follow- 
ing spring of 327, for the conquest of Turkestan. 1 

There is, however, a most grave objection to this disposition 
of events, and one of which not nearly enough account has 
been taken. The distance from Zadracarta (near Sari, on the 
Caspian littoral), where Alexander resumed his advance after 
overrunning Mazenderan, to the foot of Hindu Kush north 
of Cabul by way of noithern Seistan and Candahar, is at 
least 1300 miles. The stages by the great caravan route are 
in round numbers as follows : — 



Sari to Shahrud at least 100 miles 

Shahrud to Meshed over 300 

Meshed to Herat about 220 " 

Herat to Candahar by the great road 2 . . about 330 " 
Candahar to Hindu Kush north of Cabul . about 350 " 

1300 miles 



Now the death of Darius cannot have taken place before 
the very end of July, 330 (" non ante X Aug. , " Kohn, op. cit. 
p. 9). After that event Alexander retraced some stages of 
his route, collected his forces, crossed the Elburz chain, over- 
ran all Mazenderan, apparently pushing westwards towards 
Eesht, and finally halted for fifteen clays at Zadracarta. It is 
hardly conceivable therefore that he can have resumed the 
main Advance before the beginning of October at the very 
earliest. How, then, can he have been in the " land of the 
Paropamisadae, " i. e. at nearest, the mountains between 
Candahar and Cabul, by any part of November of that same 
year ? The thing becomes even more impossible when we 
recall that, after leaving Meshed, he went some way on the 
direct road to Balkh before being recalled to Aria by news 

1 Such is still Niese's view in 1S93 (GcscJtichfr, p. 113). 

2 Alexander almost certainly did not take a direct route, but deflected con- 
siderably to the south into northern Seistan. 



APPENDIX 297 

of its revolt; that he fought a short campaign there and 
prosecuted a siege of Artacoana; that he founded a great 
colony near Herat; that he made a halt among the 
" Evergetae, " according to one authority (Curtius) of not less 
than sixty days, and that there, or wherever " Prophthasia" 
may have been, the whole affair of the Treason Trials was 
transacted ; that he founded three more great colonies in the 
region of Candahar ; * and finally that he had a most difficult 



1 Cf. the statement as to Alexander's eastern foundations made on 
p. 228. That statement is intended to imply nothing more precise than 
that Alexander founded cities in the districts in which certain important 
modern towns now stand. It is not implied that Herat, Farrah, Candahar, 
Ghazni, Cabul, or Khojend, are placed actually on Alexandrian founda- 
tions, for there is, as yet, not a tittle of evidence to prove that. But the 
East is prone stare super antiquas vias, and the natural conditions which 
direct the course of roads remain the same. These take the same easy 
valleys and passes and make for the same oases now as of old, and 
their points of bifurcation will not vary greatly. For example, there 
can be practically no question that Darius fled eastwards along a great 
road, which had long been in existence, and that the same conditions, the 
Elburz Range and the deserts, keep the same track still in use as the main 
highway : Teheran has but succeeded to Hhagae, Meshed to Susia. Simi- 
larly, as Alexander was advancing at first from Meshed by a great route 
to Balkli, which skirts south of the deserts of Merv, so, on hearing of the 
defection of Aria, he turned south to Herat, and thereafter followed the 
already existing high-road to India. This, in Sultan Baber's time, led 
from Khorasan "by way of Candahar," and was "a straight, level road, 
not going through any hill-passes " {Memoirs, Eng. tr. Leyden and 
Erskine, p. 140) ; and the main caravan route is still the same at this 
day. It runs south from Herat, skirts the north of Seistan, passing Farrah 
to Candahar, and thence turns north-eastward to Ghazni and Cabul. In 
the record of Alexander's march over this line, we hear of the foundation 
of five colonies at least. 

(i.) Of the first — Alexandria of the Arians — we are told by Pliny (X. H. 
vi. 17. 23) that it was situated on the Biver Arius and in the road to India, 
and by Strabo (p. 723) that it was the point of bifurcation for the direct 
road to Ortospana (Cabul) and the ordinary route to Drangiana (Seistan). 
This last fact tells so strongly for the site, or at least district, of Herat, 
that, added to the very probable identification of the names Arius and 
Hcri-rud, it amounts almost to certainty ; and we need not invoke the 
doubtful aid of modern local tradition, 'which, indeed, ascribes almost every 
old town east of Euphrates, as far as the Chinese border, to Alexander. 
The new Alexandria cannot have been far removed from the old Artacoana, 



298 APPENDIX 

country to traverse between Candahar and Cabul ! A year 
rather than three months is required for a march of 1300 
miles with such delays and under such conditions. 



and was, perhaps, founded in the same district to fulfil the same function 
towards caravan trade, and to he a check on the native capital. 

A statement of Ammianus, however (xxiii. 6. 39), that this colony was 
connected by water with the Caspian, and only fifteen hundred stades distant 
from that sea, raises a question. The Heri-rud now loses itself iu the sands 
at least two hundred miles before the Caspian Sea, and Herat is about 
thrice fifteen hundred stades from the nearest point of the latter's coast. 
The great changes of course, to which rivers in this region are notoriously 
subject (e. g. the Oxus, now debouching in the Aral Sea, once flowed to 
the Caspian), might be taken to obviate the first difficulty, and an easy 
corruption of numerals to explain the second. But I suspect that really 
Ammianus is confounding a distinct city with the better known Herat 
foundation, and that his Alexandria was situated, perhaps, on the River 
Ochus (Atrek ?). In Roman times, and, indeed, down to our own day, 
the geography of the remote Khorasan region was very little known, 
and confusions are the rule. Another Alexandria or Alexandropolis is 
referred to by Pliny (N. H. vi. 25), and marked on the Peutinger Table 
much nearer the Caspian than Herat, and in the region of Niccea, which 
seems, from Strabo's account (p. 511), to have been on the edge of the 
northern desert and in the basin of the Ochus. I would suggest that this 
Alexandria was somewhere about Kushan, and on the Atrek, and that it is 
confounded by Ammianus with Alexandria of the Arians. 

(ii.) The double authority of the author of the treatise De Fort. 
Alexandri (5) and of Stephen of Byzantium (s. v. 4>/>d5a) represents 
Prophthasia as a foundation, or rather re-foundation, of Alexander's. 
The latter, in mentioning that its earlier name was 4>pd5a, seems to imply 
that that name survived the re-foundation ; and, if that be so, it is most 
tempting to look for it still in Farrah of Seistan. Such reversions to 
earlier native names are characteristic of Asia from the Indus to the 
Aegean. The only difficulty (for Alexander certainly passed by or near 
Farrah) lies in statements as to the distance of Prophthasia from Alex- 
andria of the Arians. The ancient authorities (Pliny and Strabo, quoting 
Eratosthenes) represent these cities to have been a little less than two 
hundred miles apart. From Herat to Farrah is about a hundred and 
fifty miles. The ancient reckoning seems to have been made, however, 
from Alexander's march, and is therefore subject to an error of excess. 
In any case, Prophthasia is in Seistan ; and partly in the north of that 
region, partly, perhaps, farther south in the Helmund valley, I should 
place Alexander's wintering 330-329. (On Seistan, in mediaeval times, 
see Sharaf-al-din 'Ali Yazdi's History of Timur, in the English translation 
(1723) of Peter de la Croix's version, ch. 43, ff. In modern times Gen. 



APPENDIX 299 

Compared to this march the distances traversed l>y 
Alexander north of Hindu Kush are nothing. From the 



Goldsmid has described its remains in Journ. of E. G. S., 1874, p. 
167 ff.). 

(iii.) The Afghan colonies are a most difficult problem, to which I can 
contribute nothing beyond what is set forth by Droysen (vol. ii. App. iii. 
pp. 674 11'.). It may be there are three foundations to be placed in the 
Candahar region ; it may be only two, for Isidorus' first Alexandria, near 
•' Sigal, the royal city of the Sakae," is, perhaps, no other than a western 
name for Phrada-Prophthasia in northern Seistan. 

In the Cabul region there was one very famous foundation — Alexandria 
ad Paropamisum — which seems to have come to be widely known in 
the East as Alessada, capital of the Yona, or Ionians, and to have 
been " missionized " by Asoka. We know it to have been situated at the 
foot of Hindu Kush (Ait. iii. 28. 4 ; iv. 22. 5 ; Diod. xvii. 83 ; Curt. vii. 
3, 20), and to have been some distance north of Ortospana (Cabul) (Pliny, 
N. H. vi. 17). It was not, however, the only foundation or re-founda- 
tion in this region (vide note, p. 293) ; nor is there one site only in the 
Cabul district where Hellenistic remains have been found. Alexander 
evidently attached great importance to the southern keys of the seven gates 
through Hindu Kush (cf. Memoirs of Baber, Eng. tr. pp. 139 ff.), and 
occupied several points, not only Beghram and Charikar or Opian, 
but the Bala Hissar as well. Which of the many ancient sites in this 
region represent which of Alexander's foundations, and, indeed, which 
represent Hellenistic towns at all, we have yet to learn. A material 
advance in knowledge can be made only through careful exploration by 
some one thoroughly conversant with Hellenistic remains. Nothing proves 
this more conclusively than F. von Schwarz's book on Alexander in 
Turkestan, already quoted. The author has travelled all over Trans- 
oxiana, but, owing to his want of archaeological knowledge, or concealment 
of it, he fails to satisfy us about a single site. His work is useful for 
roads, passes, and distances, but fixes no points. Nor is any service 
rendered by mere multiplication and complication of conjectures by those 
who have not visited the sites themselves. Droysen has collected the 
data of ancient authorities ; Wilson (Ariana Antiqua, ch. iii.) and Cun- 
ningham (Ancient Georj. of India, pp. 16 ff.) have said as much as can 
be said usefully about the modern sites by those who are not Hellenistic 
experts. We can only sit down and wait for changes in the political 
frontiers of Asia and for the exploring scholar. 

It seems, however, not too much to assert even now that all the great 
road-centres from Herat to Hindu Kush by way of the Helmund valley 
and Candahar, were appropriated Viy Alexander. We have fair evidence 
for the fact of his colonizing the districts of Herat and Farrah. and 
even better evidence for that of Cabul. Between these points we have 
to fit in two cities at least, in all reasonable probability situated on 



300 APPENDIX 

main chain to Balkh, and thence to the limit of the Advance, 
is not more than 400 miles in all, and it must be noted 
that the subsequent Sogdian campaigns were fought within 
an area much less extensive, i.e. in just the country between 
the Oxus and the Saravshan Eiver. There is nothing in those 
campaigns, as recorded by Arrian or Curtius, to necessitate 
an allowance of longer time than a spring, a summer, an 
autumn, and a spring. 

Let us suggest, therefore, that the Advance to the Hindu 
Kush occupied, not three months, but fourteen or fifteen, and 
that the Army came through the " land of the Paropamisadae " 
in November, 329 ; further that it reached the Sir Daria in 
the early summer of 328, spent the rest of that summer, the 
autumn, and part of the winter in crushing the Eevolt, and 
the spring of 327 in subduing the last of the hill fortresses — 
where lies the difficulty ? Not in Strabo, of course, nor in 
the induction drawn above as to the season of the advance 
to the Sir Daria ; but in objections derived not only from 
statements of Arrian, but from his silence. 

To take the last objection first. If a winter halt was 
made anywhere on the Advance to Cabul, Arrian gives no 
indication of it. The force of this objection, however, is 
almost wholly discounted by the fact that no more does 
Arrian mention the winter halt at the foot of Hindu Kush. 
The fact of that halt we learn simply from Strabo. Arrian, 
for his part, implies quite as clearly that the Advance was 
continuous from Zadracarta to the Sir Daria, as from Zadra- 
carta to Hindu Kush. 

The other objection is the more serious. Arrian (Anab. 
iv. 1 ff. ), after relating the advance from Balkh to Mara- 
canda and the Sir Daria, the suppression of the first Eevolt, 
the demonstration across the Sir Daria, the disaster to the 
Macedonian square in the desert, and Alexander's vindictive 
campaign against Spitamenes, brings the Emperor back over 

the great road, which has not changed ; and there arises a strong pre- 
sumption that their sites are represented with little change by CandahaR 
and Kelat-i-Ghilzai, or Ghazni. 



APPENDIX 301 

the Oxus to Zariaspa, where " he remained, eare irape\6elv 
to a/c/iaiov toO %ei/xcow? " (c. 7). Here occurred the punish- 
ment of Bessus, the death of Clitus, and a visit from a 
Scythian embassy. Thereafter Arrian relates (but without 
mentioning the coming of spring, as more usually is his 
custom) that Alexander recrossed the Oxus, and prosecuted 
a second campaign in Sogdiana, again visiting Maracanda ; 
but he gives almost no details at all, filling up chapter 17 
with an account of a diversion made by Spitamenes in the 
rear ; and in chapter 18 he states that the victorious marshal 
rejoined his Emperor at Nautaca, where the main army was 
reposing, ore irepl a/c/xalov rov ^a/xcofo? rjv. Presently on 
the approach of spring — apa tw r/pi virofyaivovn — Alexander 
moved from Nautaca, conducted a hill campaign against the 
rock fortresses which still held out, married Eoxana, recrossed 
the Oxus to Balkh, where occurred the affairs of the 
Prostration and the Pages' conspiracy, and towards the end 
of spring — i^rjKovTO^ ijSi] tov rjpos — marched south for the 
Hindu Kush and India. 

Now all the last part of this narration refers beyond doubt 
to the spring of 327, and it should be observed, in order that 
the small size of the area of operations may be realized, how 
much is done there in a period unquestionably not longer 
than three months. Does the earlier part of the narration, 
however, up to the halt at Nautaca, refer to one year or to two ? 
It has been usually inferred that two years are meant, 
and that the winters alluded to in connection with Zariaspa 
and Nautaca are distinct seasons. 

It will be remarked, however, by every reader of Arrian, 
that in that case their author, for some not obvious reason, 
has dealt most perfunctorily with the second of the two 
years. Alexander's own operations during the long period 
of a twelvemonth occupy but a few lines at the opening 
of chapter 16, and a few words in the middle of chapter 17, 
and are related absolutely without detail. The rest of these 
two chapters is devoted to contemporaneous operations of 
marshals in command of other columns or of garrisons. If 



302 APPENDIX 

Arrian really intended to convey the idea that this is the 
history of a whole year, he has dealt with it as he deals, in 
the Anabasis, with the history of no other year before or 
after. In short, he leaves 328 without further comment 
than a brief account of not important operations, prosecuted 
over an area less than 200 miles by 150. 

Curtius (vii. 4 ff.), the only other ancient authority we 
have for the details of this period (for there is a lacuna in 
the manuscripts of Diodorus covering the whole Bactrian 
expedition), relates the incidents of the first march to the 
Sir Daria, of the Revolt, etc. , substantially as Arrian does ; 
and also, like Arrian, he brings Alexander back again over 
the Oxus, but to Bactra, not Zariaspa. 1 There Bessus is 
punished; but we hear nothing of Clitus yet, nor of the 
Scythian embassy ; and, without any indication of a long halt, 
we are told that the Army, having received reinforcements, 
took the field again, and in four days was back at the Oxus. 
A campaign against hill-forts and the like in Sogdiana 
follows ; and Alexander, after visiting Bazira, comes to 
Maracanda, and there, at last, occurs the Clitus affair. The 
halt there is represented as but short (not much above fifteen 
days), and Hephaestion is sent back across the Oxus com- 
mcatus in hiemern paraturum; but Alexander himself retired 
no further than Nautaca. Here he spent two months and 
tertio mense ex hihcrriis movit exercitum (cap. 4). A campaign 
against hill-forts, the affairs of the Prostration and the Pages, 
and the advance to India follow in due course. 

There are, in this account, certain additions to Arrian's 
narrative, and two discrepancies with it, one grave, namely, 
that with regard to the locality of the murder of Clitus. The 
chief points, however, are confirmatory, and the main stream 
of events is not inconsistent with Arrian's ; but we gain a 
clear impression that, while the halt after the first return to 

1 See, on the identity of these places, Droysen, ii. Fr. tr. p. 679. 

F. von Schwarz (p. 65) maintains a contrary view. For him Zariaspa = 

Tsehardschui, on the road from Merv to Bokhara. But see note, supra, 
p. 299. 



APPENDIX 303 

Bactra was very brief, that at Nautaca involved a distinct 
wintering. 

The heads of Diodorus' narrative (which survive in an 
index to his seventeenth book) serve to confirm Arrian and 
Curtius in their common statement that Alexander returned, 
after the first revolt, to the Bactrian bank of the Oxus. They 
further imply but a short halt there, and proceed to support 
Curtius with regard to Bazira (called Bdaia-roi) and his 
localization of the Clitus affair. Thereafter Alexander goes 
to Nautaca, and a campaign follows in a season of heavy 
snow, as is the case in Curtius' narrative. With the 
marriage of Boxana, and the march southwards to India, 
we reach the summer. 

The sole serious chronological crux, then, in these authori- 
ties consists in Arrian 's two distinct allusions to winter. 
When we remember, however, how small is the area of 
operations, and how long the winter of Turkestan, it seems 
far from impossible that both allusions refer to the same winter. 
The phrase, a/cfialov rod ^et/iw^o?, in both cases can easily 
enough mean, " full winter -time, " and be applied equally to 
December or to February. These two allusions, as we have 
seen, are not divided by any mention of spring, nor, indeed, 
by any account of protracted operations. All that is required 
by the words of Arrian and Curtius is that Alexander should 
have returned to Balkh about November of his first year 
in Turkestan, left it again in December, recrossed the Oxus, 
marched rapidly towards Bokhara, turned east to Samarcand, 
and finally come to a halt early in February at Nautaca 
(Karshi, or Shahrisab). Thence, intending himself to remain 
two months (Curt. I.e.), he seems to have despatched some 
part of his army under Coenus, to pass the remainder of 
the winter at Balkh (Arr. iv. 17), where Hephaestion had 
already prepared supplies (Curt. I.e.). Alexander resumed 
operations against the hill -forts early in April, and thereafter 
there is plenty of time for him to be in Balkh by the middle 
of May, and to start for the Hindu Kush again ere the end 
of that month. 



304 APPENDIX 

On the one side, therefore, must be set a slight confusion 
or vagueness of terms in a not contemporary chronicler, 
due possibly to the failure of his best -ordered authority. 
Callisthenes ; on the other, there is a most glaring geographi- 
cal difficulty, not to be got over if we accept, on the one 
hand, the eclipse date for Arbela, on the other, Strabo's 
statement that a winter was passed just north of Gabul. I 
have myself no hesitation in bowing to the geographical 
difficulty, and allowing fourteen months for the march from 
the Caspian to Gabul. 

Nor am I in this view without the positive support of an 
ancient chronologist. Diodorus, in the chapters which precede 
the lacuna in his seventeenth book, begins an Attic year 
after the murder of Darius (ch. 74) and ends it just as Alex- 
ander is about to enter the land of the Paropamisadae (ch. 
82). This is to say, that in Diodorus' view the first winter 
after the Caspian had been left was spent in Drangiana, and 
not until the following July did the Army march northwards 
from Candahar. And this view I have little hesitation in 
maintaining to be absolutely correct. The place, where the 
winter of 330 was passed, was Seistan, and Curtius' sixty 
days among the Evergetae perhaps represent accurately 
enough the duration of the longest halt, that, namely, in 
the Helmund valley 

The following table will serve to sum up the conclusions 
arrived at in this discussion : — 

Alexander born early October 356 

succeeds Philip September or October 336 

wins Arbela October 1st 331 ., 

overtakes Darius first days of August 330 

leaves Zadracarta October " 

halts for winter in Seistan .... December " 

resumes advance spring 329 

reaches Candahar summer " 

reaches Cabul November " 

takes up winter-quarters at the foot 

of Hindu Rush December " 

passes Hindu Rush early spring 328 

reaches Sir Daria June " 



APPENDIX 



305 



Alexander returns to Balkh 

" sets out again for the Saravsban 
valley 

reaches Sainarcand 

goes into winter-quarters at Nautaca 

takes the field again 

recrosses the Oxus 

sets out for the south 

re-enters Calml valley 

marches east from Cabul .... 

crosses the Indus 

leaves Taxila 

reaches the Jhelum 

crosses the Jhelum 

returns to the Jhelum 

starts with the flotilla 

reaches the Indian Ocean .... 

starts for Beluchistan 

Nearchus sets sail 

Alexander reaches Carmania and meets Nearchus 

reaches Ecbatana 

" enters Babylon 

" dies 



October or November 328 

December " 

late in January 327 
February " 
April 
May 
end of May " 
June " 
November 

March 326 
April " 
May 
midsummer " 
September " 
November " 

August 325 
early in September " 
very early in October " 

about new year 324 
early autumn 

February or March 323 
in first half of June 



INDEX 



Numerical references printed in italics occur only in the footnotes. 



A 



Abel, "Makedonien vor Konig 
Philip," 6, 7, 28 

Aegae, or Edessa, 13, 15, 24 

Aelian, 58, 59, 198 

Aeropus, 10 

Aeschines, 22, 26, 27; on Philip at 
Thebes, 28 ; the embassy to Pella, 
87 ; charged by Demosthenes with 
treason, 106 ; the embassy to 
Thebes, 124, 132 

"Ayri/xa t6 (5o.<ti.\ik6v, 55 

Agesilaus, 38 

Agis of Sparta, 1 85 

Aleuadae, the (of Larissa), 25, 69 

Alexander I., 10 ; taunts his mutinous 
army, 13 ; accuses Philotas, 17 

Alexander It., 19 ; his murder, 23 

Alexander the Great, his birth, 66 ; 
a miracle of precocity, 117 ; his 
P>ucephalus exploit, 118; at Chae- 
ronea, 128 ; the quarrel with his 
father, 138 ; Plutarch's description 
of, 160 ; his portrait bust, 161 ; 
his self-restraint, 162 ; his emo- 
tional nature, 163 ; his pride 
of self, 164 ; the secret of his 
personal magnetism, 165, 171 ; a 
thorny heritage of Em [lire, 166, 

167 ; his preliminary campaigns, 

1 68 ; Thessaly obstructs, Thebes 
revolts, 169 ; attempts to conciliate 
Athens, 172, 179; a panhellenic 
for a Persian Empire, 173; a 
campaign of vengeance, 174 ; his 
reply to Darius's overtures, 175 ; 
his desire and ambition, 176, 177 ; 
battles of Granicus and M-iletus, 
178, 183 ; burns his boats and 
starts for Asia, 180 ; the coast 
campaigns, 181 ; the forced march 
to Cilicia, 182 ; Issus and its con- 



sequents, 184 ; on Darius's luxury, 
186 ; founder of Alexandria, 187 ; 
his commercial purpose, 191 ; ob- 
ject of his visit to Amnion, 193, 
195, et seq. ; boasts his divine 
origin, 199 ; marches into Persia, 
200 ; battle of Arbela, 202 ; pass- 
ing from king to emperor, 209 ; 
his pursuit of Darius, 211 ; army 
reorganization, 212; astern chase, 
213; the dead Darius, 215; his 
grief, 216 ; the turn of his years, 
217 ; disaffection in his army, 220 ; 
a grievous necessity, 221 ; the 
devotion of his soldiers, (^2jTy 
colonization of the East, 22o ; his 
tireless way through Asia, 229 ; 
desultory campaigns, 230 ; marries 
Roxana, 231 ; the Clitus tragedy, 
232 ; attempts suicide, 233 ; a 
significant picture, 234 ; his isola- 
tion, 235 ; marches into India, 237 ; 
his strange delusion, 237 ; the hill- 
men foes, 238 ; his strategy at the 
Hydaspes, 239 ; mutiny and re- 
treat, 241 ; the last Olvmpic con- 
test, 242 ; the spirit of India, 243 ; 
Indian apathy, ibid. ; a river 
flotilla, 244 ; his foolhardiness at 
Mooltan, 245 ; his oecumenic 
scheme, 248, 259-263 ; the famous 
ocean voyage, 249 ; the Beluchis- 
tan colony, 251 ; through the 
Gedrosian desert, 252 ; ill news, 
253 ; the Persian governor's mis- 
conduct, 254 ; Nearchus' story, 
255 ; mad or sane ? 260 ; Alexan- 
der and Rome — a contrast, 264 ; 
the young man in a hurry, 265 ; 
the loss of Hephaestion, 266 ; the 
savage in him unchained, 267 ; 
arrival at Babylon, 269; the Pal- 
lacopas, 270 ; incorporation of the 



308 



INDEX 



Asiatics : reorganization of the 
phalanx, 271 ; an omen, 273 ; his 
last days, 274 ; his death, 275 ; 
his work, 277 ; the genius of Hel- 
lenistic rule, 278 ; the mythic 
founder, 279 ; Alexandria's debt, 
ibid. ; his grave, 280 ; takes on 
new immortality, 281 ; received 
into the small circle of the Great, 
282 ; questions of chronology in 
his reign, 283-305 ; cardinal dates 
of his life, 284 ; intermediate 
events, 288 ; latter half of his 
reign, 291 ; the three doubtful 
years, 295 ; table of results, 304 

Alexandria, 1S7, el seq. ; her debt, 
279 

Amnion, the oracle of, Alexander's 
expedition to, 193 

Amphictyons, 97 ; their Holy Synod, 
119 

Aniphipolis, 44 ; taken by Philip, 48 

Amphissa, 121, 126 

Amyntas, Philip's father, 4, 12, 22 ; 
his death, 25 

Amyntas the Conspirator, 17 

Anaximenes, 2, 19, 25 

Antipater, 15, 53, 89, 276 

Apollonides, 78 

Arbda, 175 ; battle of, 201-205 

Archelaus, 10, 11, 53 

Archias, 258 

Argaeus, 11, 12, 22 

Argos, the earliest home of Mace- 
donian kings, 6 

Argyraspids, " Silver Shields," 55 

Aristodemus, 87 

Aristotle, 11 ; Alexander's tutor, 
119 ; his coldness to Alexander, 
235 

Army, the Macedonian, 49-64 

Arrhidaeus, 139 

Arrian, 13, 15, 17, 21, 54, 56, 58, 59, 
64, 166, 192, 196, 201, 226, 229, 
237, 241, 252, 255, 259, 268 

Arybbas, 73 

Ateas, the Scythian, 115 

Athens, her premature exhaustion, 
38 ; treaty with Philip, 44 ; ap- 
pealed to by Olynthus, 48 ; open 
war witli Philip, 67 ; her reception 
of the Olynthian envoys, 76 ; sues 
Philip for peace, 78 ; as a military 
and naval power, 80; her isolation, 
81 ; her culture, 82; her statesmen, 
83 ; her overtures to Philip and 
his terms, 86-91 ; declines Philip's 
homage, 100; fruitless negotia- 
tions, 104, 105 ; her anti-Mace- 
donian League, 108 ; her embassy 



to Darius, ibid. ; rupture with 
Philip, 110 ; the War Party in, 
123; her league with Thebes, 125 ; 
the battle of Chaeronea, ] 29 ; 
spared by Philip, 132; powerless 
to resist, 133 ; Philip's relation to 
her polity, 145-157 ; signs of de- 
cadence, 146 ; the First Empire, 
147; the Second League, 149; 
the intenseness of her life, 151 ; 
decline of her art and literature, 
152, 154; her anti-imperial wri- 
ters, 153 ; Alexander's conciliatory 
efforts, 172; her Persian sym- 
pathies, 179 ; militant speeches of 
the Macedonian orators, 185 

Attalus, 136, 138 

Axius Valley, the, 15 



B 



Babylon, Alexander at, 269 ; the 

Army of the West at, 273 
Balkan peninsula, 73 
Bardylis, 46 
Batis, 186 
Beluchistan, Alexander's colony in, 

251 
Bematistae, 228 
Boeotia, 31 
Bottiaea, 7 

Brahmans, in the Lower Indus, 243 
Budge, Dr. Wallis, 281 
Byzantium, Demosthenes at, 109 ; 

assaulted by Philip, 113 



Cadmeia, 30, 31, 34 

Callisthenes, 67, 236, 241 

Caranus, 140 

Cardia, 107 

Cassander, 276 

Cavalla, 13 

Chaeronea, battle of, 127 

Chalcidice, 13 

Chares, the Athenian, 67, 71, 111, 

114 
Charidemus, the pirate, 77 
Chenab, the camp on the, 247 
Cilicia, Alexander in, 182 
Clinton, Professor, 22, 27 
Clitus, 232 
Coenus, 241 

Corinth, Congress of, 135 
Coronea, 36 
Craterus, 253 
Ctesiphon, 86 



INDEX 



309 



Cm-tins, 17, 54, 58, 186, 194; story 
of Alexander's dare-devilry, 205 ; 
Darius's flight, 215 ; Philotas's 
death, 221 ; his anecdote of Alex- 
ander, 22S ; Alexander's colonists, 
225, 226; on Alexander and 
Roxana, 231 

Curzon's "Persia," 214, 253 

Cyrcne, 200 



D 



Darius, and the Athenian envoys, 
10S ; his overtures to Alexander, 
175 ; battle of Issus, 184 ; his 
luxury, 186 ; at Arbela, 200 ; at 
Ecbatana, 210 ; pursued by Alex- 
ander, 213 ; his death, 215 

Dec-ham bre, A., 161 

Demades, 130, 132 

Demosthenes on the Macedonian 
kingship, 16; his tirades, 17; his 
view of Philip, 43 ; his use of the 
term ire&Ttupoi, 56 ; Philip's paid 
agents at Athens, 64 ; the loss of 
Philip's eye, 67 ; the Olynthiac 
orations, 76 ; his position in 
Athens, 79 ; a group of great 
orations, 84 ; envoy at Pella, 87 ; 
on the loss of Amphipolis, 89 ; his 
strong policy, 101 ; terribly in 
earnest, 102 ; v. Aeschines, 106 ; 
his justification of Diopithes, 107 ; 
his warning to Athens, 108 ; at 
Byzantium, 109 ; his embassy to 
Thebes, 124 ; on Philip's designs 
in Greece, 125, 126 ; after Chae- 
ronea, 133 

Diodorus, 28. 54, 57, 68, 111. 194, 
208, 223, 225, 241, 242, 259, 269 

Diogenes, 170 

Dionysius, 77, 186 

Diopithes, 107 

Droysen, H., 15, 56, 57, 186, 243, 269 



E 



Ecbatana, 210, 211 

Edessa, or Aegae, 13, 15, 24 

Elatea, V2\L 

Elimiotis, 9, 13 

Elis, 134 

Emathia, 7 

Epaminondas, 33, 37 ; his character, 

38 ; invents the " Leuctrian 

Wedge," 61 
Erigyius, 235 
'Ercupoi, 8, 18, 55 



Euboea, 72 ; won over by Philip, 98 
Eumenes, 16, 53 

Euphrates, the, 200 

Eurydice, Philip's mother, 22, 26, 42 

Eustathius, 114 

Euthycrates, 78 

F 

Fick, 7 

Erankel, 193 

Frontinus, 107, 111, 223, 271 



G 



Gaugamela, plain of, 202 

Gedrosia, 252 

Gordium, 181 

Gorgias, 40 

Granicus, battle of, 178 

Grote, George, 2, 56, 127, 264 

Guards, Philip's (vTraairtcrTai), 55 

Gythium, 135 

H 

Haig, General, 248, 250, 258 

Haliacmon Valley, 15 

Halonnesus, 18 

Halus, 95 

Hamadan, 206, 211 

Harpalus, 140, 235 

Hegesippus, 104 

Hellas, expansion of, 155 ; a new 

evolution, 156 
Hephaestion, 221, 266 
Hermolaus, 18 
Herodotus, 5, 6 
Hesychius Miletus, 114 
Hetaeri (eraTpoi), 8, 18, 55 
Holm, A., 8, 14, 50, 77 
Hydaspes, battle of, 239 
H}-paspists (vwaainaTai) , 55 



I 



Icthyophagi, 257 

Ilium, 177 

Illyrians, the, 9, 28, 47 

India, Alexander's army in, 241 

Iphicrates, 22, 26 

I socrates, 97 

Issus, battle of, 184 



Jason, of Phaerae, 69 

Journal of Philology ('Army of 

Alexander'), 19, 5.5, 59 
Justin, 28, 66, 68, 103, 111, 117 ; on 

Alexander's colonies, 226, 264 



310 



INDEX 



K 

Kara Su, 7 

Kersobleptes, 65, 90, 110 
Koepp, F., 161 



Lamartine's "Vie d' Alexandre," 242 

Larissa, 69 

Lasthenes, 78 

Leon, of Byzantium, 113 

Leuctra, battle of, 24 

Libanius, 86 

Littre, E., " Sur la Maladie d' Alex- 
andre le Grand," 275 

Livy, his description of the Sarissa, 
62 

Lyncestis, 9, 13 

Lysippus, 160 

M 

Macedonia, origin of its peoples, 4 ; 
the Pelasgic and Hellenic element, 
5 ; Greek view of, 6 ; the king and 



his ercupoi, 8 
feudatories, 9 
support, ibid. : 
ant units, 10 : 



at war with her 
her bid for Greek 
a group of discord- 
her original hold- 
ings, 13 ; an absolute monarchy, 
15 ; one constitutional right, 17 ; 
ercupoi and 7re(eVcupoi, 19 ; the 
clan-spirit, 21 ; the national stand- 
ing army, 49-64 
Mahaffy, J. P., 189, 197 
Maspero, Professor G., 195 
Mazaeus, 200 
Medius, 274 
Methone, siege of, 67 
Mooltan, Alexander's foolhardiness 
at, 245 



N 



Naxos, battle of, 24 

Nearchns, 235, 249 ; story of his 

ocean voyage, 255-258 
Nipse, B., 168, 191, 193, 209, 215, 

2U, 243 







Olyinpias, Philip's wife, 65 ; the 

Jezebel of a Queen, 137 ; the wild 

harridan, 235 
Olynthus, 48 ; Philip's ultimatum to, 

75; embassy to Athens, 76 ; taken 

by Philip, 78 



Onesicritus, 257 
Onomarchus, 70 
Orchomenus, 30-32, 213 
Orestes, 11 
Orestis, 9, 13 
Oreus, 87 
Oropus, 32, 132 



Paeonia, 9, 13 

Pagasae, 72 

Pallaeopas (canal), 270 

Pammenes, 28, 40 

Pangaeus, the mines of, 45, 48 

Panhellenic League, 136 

Paraetonium, 194 

Parmenio, 17, 53, 72, 89, 136, 203, 
208, 218, 236 

Pattala, 248 

Pausanias, the Orestian, assassinates 
Philip, 142 

Pausanias, the pretender, 25, 42, 44 

Pella, 14, 23, 87 

Pelopidas, 27, 33; his character, 39 

Peparethus, 104 

Peidiccas, 11, 26, 41 

Perinthus, siege of, 111 

Persia, Alexander's march into, 200 ; 
her army at Arbela, 201 

Peterdorff, R., 193 

Yle^eraipoL, 19, 06 

Phalaecus, 95 

Phalanx, the Tlieban, 46 ; perfected 
by Philip, 62; unfit for Orientals, 
271 

Pherae, 69, 93 

Philip, his birth and parentage, 4, 
22 ; early years, 24 ; a hostage at 
Thebes, 27 ; his greatest teacher, 
3S ; his resemblance to Epaminon- 
das and Pelopidas, 40 ; on the 
Macedonian throne, 42 ; his char- 
acter, 43 ; his craft, 44 ; army- 
training, 45 ; the Theban phalanx 
46 ; defeats the Illyrians by new 
tactics, 47 ; takes Amphipolis, 48 ; 
his staters, 49 ; army-making, 50 ; 
territorial regiments, 54 ; scale of 
military honour, 55 ; pages in 
peace and equerries in war, 58 ; 
new military ideas : his famous 
phalanx, 60 ; the sarissa, 62 ; his 
principle of Empire, 64 ; Pydna 
and Potidaea, 65 ; marries Olym- 
pian, 66 ; ready with soldiers and 
plans, ibid. ; loses an e}-e at 
Methone, 67 ; open war with 
Athens, ibid. *, battle of Volo, 70 ; 



INDEX 



311 



tagus of Thessaly, 71 ; his wiles 
and bribes, 72 ; a restless king 
warring far inland, 73 ; his ulti- 
matum to Olynthus, 75 ; takes 
Olynthus, 78 ; Athens sues for 
peace, 79; his respect for and 
goodwill to Athens, 82, 99; his 
reception of the Athenian envoys, 
87 ; secret overtures to the Pho- 
cians and Thebes, 89 ; Athens 
accepts his terms, 91 ; his aims 
and plans, 92 ; inarches into 
Greece, 93 ; fire and sword through 
Phocis, 96 ; the greatest Hellene 
of them all, 97 ; his policy of 
division, 98 ; his projects against 
•Sparta, 99 ; fruitless negotiations 
with Athens, 104, 105 ; marches 
to the Danube, 106 ; the relief of 
Cardia, 107 ; result of his forbear- 
ance, 109 ; rupture with Athens, 
110 ; his drastic settlement of 
Eastern Thrace, ibid. ; siege of 
Perinthus, 111 ; assaults Byzan- 
tium, 113 ; evacuates the Cher- 
sonese, 115 ; defeats Ateas and 
returns to Pella, 116 ; Alexander 
and Bucephalus, 118 ; the Amphic- 
tyons, 120 ; marches into Greece 
again, 121 ; the fortification of 
Elatea, 122 ; his envoys at Thebes, 
124; reproaches Athens, 126 ; bat- 
tle of Chaeronea, 127 ; Demades' 
gibe, 130 ; punishes Thebes, 131 ; 
his attitude to Athens, 132 ; his 
crowning ambition, 134 ; pro- 
claimed Captain General at Con- 
gress of Corinth, 135 ; the 
Panhellenic League, 136 ; equip- 
ment of the Great Army, 136 ; 
troubles in his household, 137 ; 
his quarrel with Alexander, 138 ; 
the marriage feast, 140 ; his public 
apotheosis, 141 ; his assassination, 
142; his limitations, 144; his 
relation to Athenian polity and 
Greek civilisation, 145-157 ; 
(Greece's debt to him, 157 

Philoerates, 87 

Philotas, 17, 18, 219-221, 236 

Phocion, 64, 72, 114, 143 

Phocis, 89, 96 

Pieria, 7 

Pixodarus, 139 

Plato, 11 

Plinv, on Alexander's Colonies, 226, 
251 

Plutarch, 28 ; Philip the ' sponge,' 
44 • story of Alexander and Buce- 
phalus, 118 ; Philip v. Alexander, 



144 ; description of Alexander, 

16U ; of the visit to Amnion, 193; 

of Arbela, 203 
Polenion, 17 
Polyaenus, 62, 215, 253 
Polybius, 16 ; description of the 

sarissa, 62 
Poneropolis, 110 
Potidaea, 65, 103 
Pridik, E., 175, 193 
Ptolemy, of Alorus, 11, 26, 27 
Ptolemy, King and Historian, 140, 

235 
Pvdna, 65 
Python, 100 



Quintilian, S6 
(Juiutus Curtius. 



See Curtius. 



i; 



Eaabe, R., 282 

Ramsay, Professor W. M., 5 

Reinach, Th., 161, 2S1 

Rhagae, 213 

Rome, and Alexander — a contrast, 

264 
Roxana, 231 



S 



Salonica, Gulf of, 13 

Samarcand, 231 

Sarissa, the, or long pike, 62 

Satyrus, 137 

Sauppe, H., 21 

Schafer, 23 

Schliemann's Excavations, 178 

Schwartz, P. von, 227 

Selymbria, 113 

Silver Shields, the (dpyvpaa-rriSes), 55 

Sitalces, 110 

Siwah, 194 

Sparta and Thebes, 33, 34, 36; her 

premature exhaustion, 37 ; refuses 

submission to Philip, 99 ; her 

stubbornness, 134 
Spiegel, 281 
Strabo, 5, 24, 107, 177, 226, 229, 237, 

252, 269 
Sid. las, 67 
Sntlej, the. Olympic contest at, 212 



312 



INDEX 



Teres, 110 

Thebes, in the 4th century, 29, et 
seq.; her neglect of the arts, 30 ; 
her neighbours, ibid. ; the oli- 
garchic man, 33 ; compared with 
Sparta, 33, 34, 36 ; " Leuctrian 
insolence," 34 ; gloominess of her 
legends, 35 ; her behaviour to 
Sparta, 36 ; a league with Athens, 
123-125 ; punished by Philip, 131 ; 
her revolt and its consequents, 169 

Theopompus, 1, 19, 77, 101, 126 

Thessaly, fatal feuds in, 69 ; Philip, 
tagus of, 71 ; " split in four" by 
Philip, 98 ; obstructs Alexander at 
Tempes, 169 

Thirlwall, denies personal merit to 
Philip, 2 

Thrace, 74 ; Philip's drastic measures 
in, 110 

Tlmcydides, 7, 11, 31, 61 ; on the 
original holding of the Mace- 
donians, 13 

Tigris, 200 

Timarchus, 103 

Timotheus, 23, 41 



Tozer, H.F., " Highlands of Turkey,' 

24. 
Tyre, taken by Alexander, 187 



U 

Ulpian, 56 

'T7rao-7ri<XTcu, foot guards, 55 



Vardar Eiver, 7, 13 

Vodhena (Aegae, or Edessa), 13, 15 

Volo, battle of, 70 

W 

Weil, "Plaidoyersde Cemosthene," 1 
Wheeler, Talboys, 208, 239 



Zadracasta, 220 
Zolling, Th., 2U 
Zumetikos, A., 193 



THE END. 




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